I was only in Germany for eighteen months and had a great deal worked out with the owner of a local club. I bought three bottles of Johnny Walker Red a month and drank beer free all month. Of course being German he had to establish some rules, I could not "buy" a beer for anyone else and had a self imposed daily limit of 7 liters, or 14 .5 liter glasses. When I came back to the states I couldn't catch a buzz off a beer to save my life, all I did was recycle it.
I believe Fasching used to coincide with the signing of the Armistice, November 11...wildest partys I have ever seen, anywhere...if you got into the right group. There would be signs on businesses...Closed for Fasching...
Octoberfest was alot of fun but highly commercial-ized. The events that were really fun were the wine fests in the small towns. The Burgermeister would give a little speech and then start smacking the bung of a huge cask of white wine with a hammer, there was a brief period where wine was spraying everywhere before they got the spigot in place. It seems today from my memory that the wine I drank over there was so much better than anything I've drank here, same for the beer, German beer in Germany is not like anything here unless you can get it on tap, properly.