If you type "McKinney Oktoberfest" into a search bar this week, you'll land on one event: the 19th annual Historic Downtown McKinney Oktoberfest, presented by Tomes Auto Group, running September 25 through 27 across the square. That's the one with the shuttle buses, the three stages of polka bands, and the dachshunds. It's the one everyone means when they say "Oktoberfest" in this town.
It is also not the only one. Three days before the downtown festival even opens its gates, TUPPS Brewery is holding its own Oktoberfest, on its own property, on Saturday, September 19. No shuttle. No 14-block footprint. Just the brewery, its taproom, and whatever the crew has on tap that day. If you only know about the big one, you're planning around half of what's actually happening in McKinney this month.
The Festival Everyone Already Has Marked on Their Calendar
The downtown event has earned its size. This is the 19th year the city has closed off Historic Downtown McKinney Square for it, and the footprint reflects nearly two decades of building the thing out. The festival typically spreads across 14 blocks of downtown, with three stages running continuous entertainment: polka bands, German musicians, folk dancers, the works.
The beer list pairs Hofbräu, poured in from Germany, with TUPPS Brewery's own local pours, and rounds out with wine from Landon Winery and Lone Star Cellars. Food leans hard into the theme, with bratwurst, schnitzel, warm strudel, and Bavarian pretzels sold alongside the Arts & Crafts Marktplatz vendors setting up along the square.
The signature moments are the reason people who've never had a sip of German beer still show up. Friday night opens with the annual Keg Tapping Ceremony at 6 p.m. Saturday brings the TUPPS Brat Eating Competition, a field capped at 10 contestants who have eight minutes to make their case, and the Weenie Dog & Wannabe Dog Races, where more than 70 dachshunds (and their non-dachshund friends who want in on the fun) run for Top Dog. Friday night also hosts the 7th Annual Beard & Mustache Competition, capped at 30 entrants, and the Hofbräu Masskrugstemmen stein-holding contest tests grip strength in a way that's more entertaining to watch than to attempt yourself.
Andrew Jones, the city's Cultural District Director, put it simply when the festival was announced: "We're thrilled to welcome the community back for another unforgettable McKinney Oktoberfest." Admission is free, with add-ons for VIP access, and parking is free with a complimentary shuttle running guests in from satellite lots.
What TUPPS Is Doing a Week Earlier, and Why It Isn't a Preview
Here's where the calendar gets interesting. TUPPS Brewery, the local operation that supplies beer to the downtown festival, throws its own Oktoberfest first, on September 19, a full week before the citywide event even begins. It happens at the brewery itself on East Louisiana Street, not on the square, and it isn't a scaled-down preview of the bigger party down the road. It's TUPPS' own seasonal celebration, on its own turf, for the regulars who already know the place from its twice-monthly Hops & Shops markets and weekday happy hours.
That distinction matters if you're deciding how to spend two different Saturdays this month. The downtown festival is built for a crowd that wants the full spectacle: costumes, contests, multiple stages, a footprint big enough that you could spend an entire day and not see all of it. TUPPS' version is sized to its taproom, with the fire pits and indoor-outdoor seating regulars already associate with the brewery's Friday markets. One is a destination event that pulls people in from across North Texas. The other is a neighborhood brewery doing its own version of the same tradition for people who are already there most weekends anyway.
Neither is a lesser copy of the other. They're just built for different afternoons.
The Overlap Nobody Advertises
There's one more wrinkle worth knowing before you pick a weekend. TUPPS runs its Hops & Shops vendor market on the second and fourth Friday of every month, and this September that lands on the 11th and the 25th. The 25th also happens to be the opening night of the downtown Oktoberfest, with the Keg Tapping Ceremony kicking off at 6 p.m.
That means the same Friday evening offers both a local vendor market at the brewery and the start of the citywide festival on the square, close enough together that a resident could reasonably do both in one night: browse the Hops & Shops booths early, then walk over for the keg tap and the start of three days on the square.
A few practical notes if you're mapping out the month:
- Saturday, September 19: TUPPS' own Oktoberfest at the brewery on East Louisiana Street. No shuttle needed if you're already downtown-adjacent.
- Friday, September 25: TUPPS Hops & Shops market runs 6 to 9 p.m., the same evening the downtown festival opens with its 6 p.m. Keg Tapping Ceremony.
- Saturday, September 26: The dog races, the brat-eating competition, and the bulk of the downtown festival's daytime programming.
- Sunday, September 27: The downtown festival's final, lower-key day, typically running early afternoon into evening.
The Rest of Downtown Isn't Waiting Around Either
Oktoberfest season is landing in a downtown that's been adding new places to eat and drink all year, which is part of why the square can absorb two separate beer festivals without either one feeling like an afterthought. Centro on the Square opened across from the McKinney Performing Arts Center with handmade pasta and a private dining room, and just wrapped a lunch-only Restaurant Week menu that ran through early September with proceeds going to the North Texas Food Bank. A few blocks over, Shorty's Coneys and Cocktails moved into one of downtown's oldest buildings, a late-1800s structure that once housed First National Bank, after roughly $750,000 in renovations, and opened this past March with a Sonoran-style hot dog on the menu alongside smashburgers priced under ten dollars.
Not everything new is downtown, either. Oak & Stone, a beer-centric concept out of Florida, chose McKinney for its Texas debut this spring, opening in May over on West University Drive in a development shared with Kura Revolving Sushi Bar and Velvet Taco, with a self-serve tap wall as its centerpiece. Between that stretch of University Drive and the brewery and restaurant scene downtown, McKinney's beer and food options have been expanding in more than one direction at once, which is worth knowing if Oktoberfest is your first real look at what the town has going on.
Pick Your Weekend, Not Just Your Festival
The honest answer to "which Oktoberfest should I go to" is both, if your calendar allows it. They're not competing for the same night out. One is a brewery doing right by its regulars on a quiet Saturday. The other is a nearly two-decade-old civic tradition that shuts down 14 blocks and brings in a shuttle system to handle the crowd. Knowing the difference, and knowing that September 25 quietly stacks both a neighborhood market and a citywide kickoff on the same evening, is the kind of detail that turns a good weekend into a well-planned one.
If you're already living in McKinney, this is just one more reason the town keeps surprising people who think they've seen the whole calendar. If you're weighing whether McKinney should be home at all, that same layered, still-growing character, downtown festivals stacked on top of neighborhood brewery traditions stacked on top of new restaurants opening almost monthly, is worth a real conversation. Reach out to The Agency Frisco and we'll talk through what life actually looks like here, block by block.