A mass of sausage, beer and leiderhosen flooded the city of New Braunfels this weekend to mark the 50th annual Wurstfest.

The festival, started in 1961, began as a way to honor the town’s most popular food. From the very beginning, the sausage capital of Texas drew in meat lovers from all over the world, and the event has only grown since.  

Wurstfest has brought in tens of thousands of visitors in recent years, although not just for the sausage. The festival offers a variety of events, acts and eats for all ages.

While alternative music fans were getting their fix at Fun Fun Fun Fest, Polka lovers know that Wurstfest is the place to go. There are up to four different polka bands playing simultaneously at any given time on the grounds. Native Germans and small children alike don their leiderhosen and polka all around the dance floor for hours on end.

Wurstfest also plays host to an annual melodramatic comedy. “Gone with the Wurst,” put on by the Circle Arts Theatre adjacent to the festival grounds, invites festival-goers to eat, drink and watch a good, old-fashioned comedy.  

The show, as one might expect, plays on the premise of the iconic “Gone with the Wind.” In this audience-interactive parody, Butt Rhetler and Crimson O’Tara, with their bodacious helper Sissy, attempt to film a blockbuster smash in Weeniewood. The humor is cheap and the acting is outrageous, but there is something to be said for any production that encourages alcohol consumption and popcorn throwing.

The festival even opened Kinderhalle, a children’s recreation area complete with carnival rides, in 2007 in order to be more family friendly.

Wurstfest, however, is nothing without the food for which it is so famous.  Dozens of food stands line the aisles, all claiming to have the best of the wurst.

These vendors are not typical food stands, though. Most are there for some sort of community fundraisers. New Braunfels Lion’s Club chapter, the local high school band boosters and St. Jude’s were just a few of the food vendors raising money for a cause.

The food itself, however, will raise nothing more than cholesterol. Wurstfest boasts yards upon yards of sausage, mounds of fried pickles, funnel cakes, pretzels and beer that seems to flow forever. It is easy to get carried away when all of the food is deliciously deep fried, especially when the money goes to a good cause.

The sausage will be grilled, the polka will play and the beer will continue flowing until Wurstfest ends Nov. 13.