Hop Queen gets crowd ready to dance

What sticks out to reigning Hop Queen Kate Houlihan most about her Oktoberfest experience? The Chicken Dance.

“You do a lot of chicken dancing. You probably do the Chicken Dance 20 to 30 times during the weekend. You judge the kids Chicken Dance,” Houlihan says with a laugh.

Houlihan last year was crowned the Great Northwest Oktoberfest’s Hop Queen and will preside over the first week of this year’s festival before a new queen is crowned on Oct. 3.

Whitefish’s Oktoberfest this year runs on the weekends of Sept. 26-28 and Oct. 3-5 and will be held at Smith Fields.

It was Houlihan’s association with the Great Northern Brewery that got her in the running for Hop Queen in the first place, she says.

Her roommate at the time and former Marketing Manager for Great Northern, Niki Bates, often had Houlihan helping out with various brewery events, pouring beer for customers as a volunteer.

“I kind of became the resident volunteer there,” Houlihan recalls. “A lot of the local businesses that are the sponsors are encouraged to have a candidate that runs for Hop Queen. They asked me if I wanted to run, and I said, ‘Why not?’” — not really knowing exactly what I was getting myself into, all the chicken dancing I would have to do.”

The brewery also helped her study up on the various knowledge she would be tested on in her path to becoming Hop Queen, things like what beer is made of, what year Oktoberfest started and how to identify different hops strains by smell.

“I definitely had some people in my corner that helped me study up beforehand at the brewery. They quizzed me on a lot of Oktoberfest trivia beforehand,” she says.

A beer fan herself, Houlihan struggles to pare down her favorites to just a few. If she had to make a list, though, she says Draught House’s Scepter IPA, Great Northern Brewery’s Alpenglow Belgian Tripel Ale and Kettle House’s Fresh Bongwater Hemp Ale are all up there.

For Houlihan, getting involved in Oktoberfest is a chance to immerse herself in the community she’s lived in for the last five years.

“I wanted to connect more with the community and get involved more in general, and it was such a big event in Whitefish that I wanted to enjoy being a part of,” she says. “It’s something different and super fun. I love the music, to go and dance with my friends. It’s just a nice event to change things up here in Whitefish and get dressed up and have a good time.”

Part of her job as reigning queen is also to recruit new queen candidates.

For those hoping to wear the traditional dirndl, Houlihan’s got some advice.

“I’m telling them to definitely study up on their beer knowledge and everything from random Oktoberfest facts to what beer is made of. And not to be shy, when you get up there it can definitely be nerve-wracking,” she says. “And to practice their stein-holding — because those things are really heavy.”

More information on Oktoberfest and applying to be the next Hop Queen is available at www.whitefishoktoberfest.com.