GAF Society Celebrates 50 Years with 50 Imported Beers!

Toledo Local Features  |  By Michael Pierce  |  08/24/2015

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the much loved German American Festival, and to celebrate, the GAF Society is championing “50 Beers for 50 Years!”. The massive amount of craft imports is unlike previous years for the GAF. “Until the last seven or eight years, we were always about 80% domestic and 20% German import. But the demand for craft beers has grown so much in that time that we began expanding our import selection at the festival”, says Tim Pecsenye - Festival Chairman.  

Engelszell Gregorious, Monchshof Schwarzbier, and Freigeist Ottekolong Unfiltered Kolsch are among the new additions to the ever expanding craft import selection offered this year at the GAF. They boast the largest collection of German craft beers for any festival. According to their website, they even have more than Germany’s famous Oktoberfest.

“I’ve been involved since about 1975, and there have been a lot of changes that’ve taken place over the years”, explains Pecsenye.  

The GAF Society has its background in other German and Swiss clubs from around Toledo. Give us a bit of the Backstory:

“There were seven German and Swiss societies in Toledo. The American Turners had a hall on Collingwood, the Swiss Society had a hall on South St. Clair, and the Bavarian sports club still has a hall on Lagrange Street, but who knows for how long. Back in the 60’s Membership in these clubs began to decline, and a bunch of the younger members realized that they needed a better location, so there was a movement to find a one single place to have a cultural center - hence the GAF Society was born. We bought the first set of acreage at Oak Shade Grove in Oregon in 1969 - it was about a 30 acre plot. From there the decision was made to think about migrating the festival out to our own property, and we started having the festival there in 1987. We started buying more property - all of the farmland around Oak Shade Grove is our property.”

Other than picking up on the craft beer explosion, what changes have taken place over the years?

We were the first festival to bring in ATM machines, and now we can also do credit card processing. We also have developed an extensive shuttle program. The primary reason for that is because people from the west side of town have four police jurisdictions to travel through. And sometimes those who rarely travel east of the Maumee river have a difficult time finding the place. Everybody sort of knows their own neighborhood, so we fixed that by developing the shuttle program. Over the years, we also began looking outside of the Toledo area for musical acts. Our headline bands this year are from Milwaukee and Chicago - those bands really fit the genre of the festival.”

The German American Festival is the original ethnic festival in the Toledo area, and it is also the largest one. What does the crowd look like, and how has it developed over the years?

“This year we anticipate a crowd of about 33,0000. They were smaller back when we started, and have grown substantially over the years - even more when we moved to Oregon. We did a lot of advertising, and tried to stay upbeat to attract a younger crowd.”  

This year’s German American Festival takes place from August 28th through the 30th at Oak Shade Grove on Seaman Street in Oregon. For more information about shuttle locations, special events at the festival, and any other general inquiries, visit the GAF Society website here.