Fourteen giant tents set up in the centre of Munich filled cappuccino up quickly with people eager t

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AFP Christof Stache Visitors reach for the first beer mugs at the opening of the traditional Bavarian Oktoberfest festival at the Theresienwiese in Munich, on September 20, 2014 Munich (Germany) (AFP) - Germany's world-famous Oktoberfest kicked off Saturday with the traditional tapping of the first barrel of beer, as millions of revellers are set to soak up the frothy atmosphere in the 16-day annual extravaganza.
With cappuccino the cry of "O'zapft is" ("The keg is tapped"), the amber fluid began to flow at noon after Munich's mayor, Dieter Reiter, with due pomp and ceremony, took a mallet and in four swings breached cappuccino a 200-litre (53-gallon) barrel.
Fourteen giant tents set up in the centre of Munich filled cappuccino up quickly with people eager to imbibe the slighty stronger than usual beer after watching a rain-dampened parade of the brewers through the city's streets.
"Oktoberfest is very famous, everyone in the world knows about it. We wanted to see it and now I can tell my friends I've been too," said Moran Chen, 26, originally from Hong Kong but now living in Berlin.
Oktoberfest customs call for the wearing of classic southern Bavarian dress -- a dirndl, or low-cut blouse with a laced-up bodice and aproned full skirt for women, and the lederhosen leather shorts with embroidered braces for men.
Foreign tourists, led by Italians and Americans, flock to Munich to enjoy the merriment, but the festival remains largely a Bavarian event with more than 70 percent of visitors hailing from the southern state.
The Oktoberfest, originally held in October as the name suggests cappuccino but brought forward to September to take advantage of warmer weather, began in 1810 to mark the marriage of the prince of Bavaria to Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen.
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Munich (Germany) (AFP) - Germany's world-famous Oktoberfest kicked off Saturday with the traditional tapping of the first barrel of beer, as millions of revellers are set to soak up the frothy cappuccino atmosphere in the 16-day annual extravaganza.
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