There’s been no Oktoberfest or other German-focused festival in Tuscaloosa in nearly ten years. So members of the community are coming together to bring Germany’s Volkfest to the city.

The event is a collaboration between Mercedes-Benz and Focus on Senior Citizens of Tuscaloosa County, and it will serve as a fundraiser for Focus. Volksfest will take place on Saturday from 11am to 9pm at Government Plaza.

Originally, the sponsors of the event wanted to bring Oktoberfest to town. But this conflicted with the busy fall football schedule.

“We thought, ‘this is too good of an idea,’ so we did a little research and found out the second largest festival behind Oktoberfest is Volksfest,” said Morgan Mann, executive director of Focus.

Volksfest’s origins begin in Stuttgart in 1828, the same city that Mercedes-Benz came from.

One of the major contributors to Volksfest is Black Warrior Brewing Company, who will be providing new German-inspired brews.

“The day of the event, we’ll be providing quite a bit of beer,” said Eric Hull, co-owner of Black Warrior Brewing Company. We made a special German beer specifically just for the event, where that’s the only place you can get it. We’ll have that as well as three other of our staple beers.”

The event will start off with an inaugural tapping, with a 10-gallon cask that will be opened with a mallet.

“For Volksfest, we’ll have a German altbier, which is a more regional German beer that’s not necessarily popular throughout the country, but it’s a little darker of a beer,” said Hull. “It’s not quite as wheaty… It’s not a dark beer by any means and fairly light in drinking, which is nice and refreshing for a summer day.”

Along with adult beverages, Volksfest will also introduce Tuscaloosa citizens to authentic German cuisine. Artists Wolfgang Moritz and Smooth Saddles will perform. The festival will provide a family-friendly environment for attendees of all ages. One of Volksfest main attractions will be its car show, showcasing both early and late-model German-made automobiles.

Though this the first year of Volksfest, Mann was optimistic, hoping that later years would only strengthen the event’s success.

“This is our main fundraiser for this year,” Mann said. “We know it’ll only get bigger and better, but it should be good this year.”

Tickets are available online at www.brownpapertickets.com or at the gates of the festival.