For gold owners, Oktoberfest is cheaper than it has been for 44 years

Even before the first Oktoberfest keg is tapped, the beer price is giving many Oktoberfest visitors a headache, as it does every year. In 2025, it is a hefty 15.80 € per litre. Gold owners, on the other hand, can look forward to an Oktoberfest that is as cheap for them as it was in 1981. Converted, an ounce of gold is worth no less than 186 litres of beer at the Munich Theresienwiese. That is 38 more than last year and 67 more than in 2023. Although the price per litre of “Wiesn” beer has risen by 3.3 per cent in euros since 2024, the ‘beer purchasing power’ of gold has increased by 25.7 per cent over the same period.

Oktoberfest beer and gold prices up dramatically since 1950

Those were the days: according to Incrementum’s Gold/Oktoberfest-beer ratio, one litre cost the equivalent of 0.82 € at the very first Oktoberfest in 1950. At the time, the gold price was pegged to the US dollar under the Bretton Woods system and remained fixed at 35 US$ per ounce until the early 1970s. At the very first Oktoberfest, however, one ounce of gold was worth 91 litres of beer. This purchasing power, extremely favourable for gold owners, was not surpassed until 1975, when one ounce of gold would have bought 105 litres of beer. 1980 saw the most favourable and, to date, unmatched ‘exchange rate’ at 227 litres of beer per ounce of gold.

Highest annual price increases for gold and Oktoberfest beer

As interesting as the Gold/Wiesn-beer ratio is for comparing the purchasing power of gold and the euro over time, there is little direct correlation between the two, apart from inflation-related price increases. Due to the oil crisis and the entailing inflation rate of 6 per cent, Oktoberfest beer recorded its  most drastic hike in 1975 at 39.1 per cent, while gold appreciated by 202 per cent. Thus far in 2025, the gold price has risen by 30.2 per cent in euros, exceeding the “inflation rate” for Oktoberfest beer more than ninefold.