The day is almost upon us, the official start of Oktoberfest 2011. If you’re reading this from Munich, Guten Tag and Prost!

If you’re coming to us from another part of the world, we at OktoberfestHaus.com hope you’ve got the pretzels baking and the beer flowing. To spice up your celebrations this year, here are some fun facts that you may not know about Oktoberfest.

- The first Oktoberfest was held in 1810.

- Oktoberfest München is the largest festival in the world, attracting 6.5 million people over the length of the festival.

- In 201 years of the festival Oktoberfest has been canceled 24 times due to war, disease and other emergencies.

- 7,100,000 liters of beer were consumed at last year’s festival. That’s enough to fill almost 3 Olympic-size swimming pools!

- Only six breweries are allowed to sell beer at Oktoberfest. Those six are: Augustinerbräu, Hacker-Pschorr Bräu, Hofbräu, Löwenbräu, Paulanerbräu, and Spatenbräu.

Get ready for the festivities to begin. PROST!