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Beer is what economists call an elastic good; the more it costs, the less of it people buy. But at Oktoberfest, Germany’s debaucherous annual beer festival in Munich, the rule doesn’t exactly hold. In fact, it gets flipped on its head.

When this year’s beer festival kicks off on Saturday, more than 7 million beer drinkers will gather to drink some 15 million liter glasses. If they are sober enough, they will notice that their lagers, ales and stouts cost more than they did last year.

As is the case almost every year, the price of beer at the Oktoberfest has risen faster than inflation, according to UniCredit Research’s Oktoberfest 2013 report. The average beer at this year’s festival will cost €9.66 ($13)—3.6% more than it did last year. 3 Considering that inflation in Germany is currently hovering somewhere closer to 1.5%, festival goers should be outraged. And yet, like they have virtually every year before this, they will buy and drink more beer per head than they did the year before.

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– http://qz.com/125940/the-more-expensive-oktoberfest-beer-gets-to-more-beer-oktoberfest-goers-drink/