BEAVER CREEK — “Excuse me, do you know where I can buy a chicken hat?” isn’t traditionally what you hear at an Oktoberfest — unless you’re in Beaver Creek.

That’s because the one and only Helmut Fricker, the face of Beaver Creek’s Oktoberfest, introduced the chicken hat — and the chicken dance — to the celebration.

“It’s my own design, especially made for me,” Fricker said of the chicken hat, which is a fake, furry yellow or white chicken that sits on your head. And everyone who’s anyone was wearing one Saturday on the resort plaza.

As for the chicken dance (you know: da da DAdaDAdaDA), definitely an oom-pah song, became popular in Europe, Fricker said, about 30 years ago at carnivals. He’s incorporated it into his Oktoberfest entertainment to bring everyone to the dance floor. He and his band, the Rhinelanders, as well as the band Trachtenkappelle, visiting from Beaver Creek’s sister resort, Lech Zurs, will play again Sunday as Beaver Creek’s Oktoberfest continues.

Jackie Schwanke and her husband, Jurgen, follow Fricker from Oktoberfest to Oktoberfest from Colorado Springs to Dodge City every September. The couple, who are in the International Polka Club, help fill Fricker’s dance floor.

“We love to be with him,” Jackie said. “He’s a fantastic entertainer. He has personality and pulls the crowd in.”

Jackie said that because her husband is German, she’s been drafted each September to devote the entire month to Oktoberfest celebrations. Though she was unsure how traditional the chicken dance actually is to Germany.

The official Oktoberfest dance, according to Jurgen Friese of Denver, originally from Germany, is the Schuhplattlen, or slap dance, where one slaps his leg and his shoe in time to the music. Friese is president of D’Miesbacher Oimtaler, a dance troupe based in Denver.

“There’s also the polka, danced to a two-step rhythm, and then there is the waltz,” Friese said.

Friese and his men were wearing traditional German garb, including Gamsbart, or “the beard of a mountain goat,” stuck in their hats. Looking like a feather duster, a Gamsbart is made from the hair on a goat’s neck, and in the old days it was viewed as a hunting trophy.

“The most successful hunter would have the biggest Gamsbart,” Friese said. “It’s all about bragging rights.”

Like the chicken and goat hats on the dance floor, Beaver Creek continues to mix the traditional with nontraditional in its food selections, too, with more booths than ever before. Alpenrose was dishing up pastries, bratwurst and sauerkraut, while Coyote Cafe was serving up sizzling fish tacos. The beer, an essential element to any Oktoberfest, was of course made by Coors.

Oktoberfest is free to enter and continues today on the plaza from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Super Diamond, a Neil Diamond cover band, will play from 4:30-6 p.m. For more information, call 845-9090.

Arts and Entertainment Editor Cassie Pence can be reached at 748-2938 or cpence@

vaildaily.com.

Vail, Colorado