- My name's Jake and when I was a teenager, I bought a used accordion at a thrift shop.

It changed my life forever.

Today, making music with the Chardon Polka band is my job.

There's Mike, Mitch, two Bobs and a Brian.

You never know what's gonna happen next.

You never know who you might run into, because this is "The World According to Polka."

(upbeat music) (whip swooshes) We're back in New Braunfels as we celebrate the 10-day salute to sausage known as the Wurstfest and we're about to find out that polka and sausage aren't the only things you can find in Texas.

Alright, Sean, tell me is there anything we gotta be worried about out here?

- Well, Jake, we've got rattlesnakes, we've got copperheads, we've got water moccasin, we've got tons of spiders and scorpions, bobcats, mountain lions, feral hogs and the list goes on.

- Fortunately we will not be seeing any feral hogs today, but we will see how family and community play an important role in this festival and we're gonna kick things off with my musical family, the Chardon Polka Band.

(upbeat music) (attendees cheering) (upbeat music continues) (attendees continue cheering) (upbeat music continues) (attendees continue cheering) (upbeat music continues) (attendees continue cheering) ♪ Oh roll out the barrel ♪ We'll have the barrel of fun ♪ Roll out the barrel ♪ We've got blues on the run ♪ Rosay built a barrel ♪ Bring out your song of your cheer ♪ ♪ Now it's time to roll out the barrel ♪ ♪ For the gang's all here (upbeat music continues) (attendees continue cheering) (attendees cheering) - I'm Jake Kouwe and these are two chickens.

Chickens remind me of family.

You know what?

I've been coming to the Wurstfest since 2014 and one of the things that has always made this festival so special to me, is that I've gotten to enjoy it with my family.

As many of you guys know, my wife, Emily used to play full-time in the band and this has always been a festival where my dad will come and jam with the band.

It is such a blast to see my dad and Emily up there on stage with us and it's always fun to see a slightly younger version of ourselves, right?

And speaking of being younger, this next performer, he's got about 15 years on me.

This is Isaac Klaus and his band, The Lederhosen Junkies and just like with me, for him, music is a family affair.

- I'm Isaac Klaus from The Lederhosen Junkies.

We've been a band for four years now and we are dedicated to not only preserving polka music but expanding it and bringing it to new audiences everywhere.

(upbeat music) Let say his name, Anton, Anton, Anton, Anton, Anton, Anton, Anton, Anton.

(Anton singing in foreign language) - Anton, Anton.

(Anton singing in foreign language) - Anton, Anton.

(Anton singing in foreign language) - Anton, Anton.

(Anton singing in foreign language) - Let’s hear it now.

Anton, Anton, Anton, Anton, Anton, Anton, Anton, Anton, Anton, Anton, Anton, Anton, Anton, Anton.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (Anton singing in foreign language) (Anton continues singing in foreign language) (upbeat music) - Hey!

(attendees cheering) - Hey, let's hear for our dancers here.

- Yeah!

- Alright, so we're here at the Barrow Ranch in Kingsbury, Texas and I'm here with Sean.

You are that young man's father we just saw up there on stage.

Isaac, you're his dad.

- There is, that's my boy.

- I love it.

How long has Isaac been playing?

- He's been playing professionally since he was 16.

- So Isaac's playing German music.

Are you guys German?

- Yeah, we are German, Jake, our family's been here in Texas since the 1800s.

- All right, now what's your favorite part of Isaac being a musician?

- Oh man, it's just been so great, you know, following him around and just watching him grow as a performer and just watching him bring joy to the audiences that he gets to perform for.

- He does, he brings joy to so many people.

- Yeah, he does.

- We love seeing him on stage.

So one of the opas came up to me the other night and he said, "You see that kid up there?"

And he was talking about Isaac.

I said, "Yeah, yeah."

And he goes, "You know, I go to a German Bible study every week and he's the teacher."

- He is.

(laughs) - So he's not just into music?

- He's going to school at (indistinct) Bible Institute, there out of Wisconsin.

- Okay.

- Of all places.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

- And yeah, so he is studying to be a preacher.

- A preaching polka player.

- Preaching polka player.

- I love it and you heard it right here in Texas folks and anytime I see 'em on stage, you guys are there and I love seeing you and Michelle supportive parents, you know, you're running a camera, she's selling the merch and all that.

- We make as many shows as we can.

- It's so wonderful to hear about how this is a family tradition and a family thing and thank you for sharing Texas with us and of course, thank you for sharing Isaac.

He's a great guy.

- Oh, you bet, we appreciate having you here, Jake.

- We come up here at least one of the weekends every year to hang out with our family.

It's a big family reunion.

My brothers, my sisters, we just come up and eat and drink as much as we can.

- It's been a reunion and sort of a tradition for the last 10 years for me and my family and they really love it.

So it's sort of become a generational thing.

(air swooshes) - All right, listen up you cow pokes, if you're gonna come to a festival like this, you need to dress the part.

Now I'm not talking about this kind of dress, though, it is Texas and it definitely works.

I'm talking about authentic German garb and we found just the place to get it.

It's the Cuckoo's Nest out of Fredericksburg, Texas.

Their popular booth here at the Wurstfest, showcases imported German festive wear and we're sending in our own Texas fashion aficionado and Chardon Polka Band sales associate Cati Jo Kincaid to check it out.

- Howdy y'all, this is Cati Jo, I'm helping out with the Chardon Polka band today, we are here with Paula and Kaylee.

We are gonna be talking about some traditional German garbs and traditional wear.

These are gorgeous, gorgeous dresses.

Would y'all be able to give us any like background information on these?

And the historical significance.

- Yes, you have here this particular one, a little bit more of a traditional style.

When a lot of the older style, traditional style have two, three different patterns, like a paisley, like a pattern and you wear 'em with the white blouse.

This one has like a V-neck, so some of the people are a little modest, they don't want it cut too low.

- Sure.

- Then you have more like, hey, in your colors, look.

(Paula laughs) - Hey.

(laughs) - We can make a German Texan outta you.

- We can get a little saucy if we need.

I'm ready to try some on.

Let's do it.

Let's have a little fun.

Let's try on some traditional wear.

(upbeat music) (air swooshes) (upbeat music continues) (Paula speaks indistinctly) - Wouldn't you be surprised, a lot of the girls wear their cowboy boots.

- With the boot, oh yes, right now, especially out here.

- A lot of the girl, on the hats, I have a lot of what we call Schurmann country.

The hat is similar like this.

A lot of the young girl wear it.

When you have more a traditional one on, when she has what she has, a traditional landhausstil dress on.

This is not called a dirndl this is called landhausstil.

- It's very gorgeous, it's very intricate.

- So you can wear that with or without a blouse, but it's a total different outfit.

- Beautiful, beautiful and they were saying, as per tradition, having this bow tied on the left side indicates that you are not married.

(laughs) (Paula speaks indistinctly) - Right is married.

(Cati laughs) - And so to the right would indicate that you are a married lady and not on the table.

(laughs) - Our friend, Paula, the shop's owner, grew up in Southwest Germany before she started selling German stuff in Texas.

She has great memories of her grandparents cuckoo clock and that's how the Cuckoo's Nest got its name.

Hey, that's just another way that families and their traditions have shaped this festival.

- We love that you're bringing German tradition.

- Thank you - To the hill country and to all of Texas.

- Thank you.

- It's a beautiful thing and we love the way that new Braunfels and Wurstfest embraces the true German traditions.

- Alright, so we've shown you authentic German garb.

What about authentic German instruments?

The Alpenhorn or Alphorn is ubiquitous with the mountainous regions of Europe and we've got Brian Brazier to play it for you.

(attendees cheering) (horn blaring) (mid-tempo music) (horn blaring) (mid-tempo music continues) (horn continues blaring) (mid-tempo music continues) (horn continues blaring) (mid-tempo music continues) (horn continues blaring) (mid-tempo music continues) (horn continues blaring) (mid-tempo music continues) (horn continues blaring) (mid-tempo music continues) (horn continues blaring) (mid-tempo music continues) (horn continues blaring) (mid-tempo music continues) (horn continues blaring) (mid-tempo music ends) (horn continues blaring) (attendees cheering) (mid-tempo music) (horn blaring) (mid-tempo music ends) (horn continues ends) (attendees cheering) - The word is lederhosen folks, those are the traditional leather shorts we're all wearing.

Now, lederhosen translates to leather pants.

If you mispronounce it as leaderhosen, that would actually translate to singing pants.

Now I don't know about you, but I like both singing and leather pants.

In addition to lederhosen and dirndls, at this festival, you may have noticed the guys in the red and green vests, those are the opas and they run the whole show.

- Who is my favorite opa and why is it you?

- When you're walking around Wurstfest, you may notice guys in red vests and green vests.

Those are people that are involved in the Wurstfest association.

They are probably close to 300 of us now.

We are volunteers basically that kind of help Wurstfest run.

There's many committees that all of us work on, from gates to bars to entertainment.

We just kind of help this festival, kind of help it run.

It's an amazing effort from so many people to make Wurstfest what it is.

I've seen Wurstfest go from a very small October Fest to what it is now, which is absolutely huge.

So we're excited to put it on every year for you fine people out there.

- Again, we see the notion of family.

Opa is grandfather in German and aside from his other duties, our friend Jay also takes the stage to entertain with some of his fellow opas in the Zuhause Junge Opa Band.

(upbeat music) ♪ Hey (upbeat music) ♪ Once I was a boggy singer ♪ Playing in a rock and roll band ♪ ♪ I never had no problem ♪ Playing down a one night stand ♪ ♪ And everything around me (speaks indistinctly) ♪ ♪ Got to start feeling so long ♪ And I decided quickly, yes I did ♪ ♪ To disco down and check out the show ♪ ♪ They were dancing, singing and moving to the grooving ♪ ♪ Just when it hit me, the body turned around and shouted ♪ ♪ Play that polka music white boy ♪ ♪ Play that polka music way ♪ Play that polka music white boy ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ Play that polka music for me right ♪ (opa sings indistinctly) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) ♪ Won't you take me to polka town ♪ ♪ Won't you take me to polka town ♪ ♪ Won't you take me to polka town ♪ ♪ Won't you take me to polka town ♪ (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) ♪ Somebody scream (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) ♪ Play that polka music ♪ Play that polka music ♪ Play that polka music ♪ I'ma play that polka music ♪ Play that polka music white boy ♪ ♪ Play that polka, play that polka music ♪ (upbeat music) (upbeat music ending) - You see that?

That's prickly pear.

You can like make wine out of it and eat it, but I'm not gonna go in there after it.

It's just too well guarded for me.

Now I don't think they have prickly pear in Bavaria, but they do have sausage and my friend Jeff has all his ingredients ready and he's gonna show us how to stuff sausage with a family recipe and his traditional sausage stuffing machine.

- And what does a sausage stuffer do, right?

It's stuffed sausage.

Boom, boom, boom.

Here we go.

Problem we have here, is this is very hard to hang in a smokehouse.

It doesn't work very well, does it?

So we gotta put it in something, casing, that's right.

What's it made out of?

Pig intestines.

This would've been about 40 feet of small intestine from a market hog, about a 200 pound hog.

So what I'm gonna do here is, I'm going to cut it to the length I want, just like that.

I'm gonna tie the end off with cotton string, cotton string is imperative, because when it dries, it will adhere to this casing, right?

It works very well.

Tie my first knot, so from here, I'm gonna put this on the end of our machine right here.

It's called the horn.

(snorts) (water slurps) Now because it's a natural product, if I push too soft, it's not gonna fill up.

It's gonna be air pockets in there, air pockets are bad news.

It invites bacteria, invites tummy aches.

Not fun, right?

If I push too hard, splatter zone.

So we'll see how it goes.

- Jeff knows what he's doing.

He machines this sausage like a pro.

- When I get to the end, I'm gonna let off a little bit.

That does me two things.

Keeps this from going all over the table and then it gives me a little pigtail, right, if you will.

A little purchase to tie this sausage, this other knot.

Again, a very stout knot and the reason why I'm emphasizing that is, this now has to hang in a smokehouse for about three days under a light smoke, oak or pecan or hickory works really well.

You let it dry for another week or so in that smokehouse, you end up with our finished product right here.

It's ready to eat, it's preserved, it's cured, it's ready to go just like it is.

(upbeat music) - All right, I gotta, gonna learn some cowboy trick.

- Okay Jake.

- Okay, don't hold it at the hondo, hold it.

- The what?

- The hondo.

This is the hondo.

- The hondo.

- Don't hold it tight.

- Okay.

- Hold it like you're holding a lady.

- Okay.

(laughs) Like this?

- It's how I was taught, that's how I was taught.

- Okay and then it's all in your wrist.

See what you got.

- I'd stand back if I were you.

- I'm gonna stand back.

- Nope, nope, nope, nope.

Hold on.

- That was terrible.

- Let's just have you do the demonstration.

Watch how easy he makes this.

(rope swooshing) The World According to Polka baby.

Yee haw, and now we're gonna lasso up another wild polka with the Chardon Polka Band.

(rope swooshing) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (yodeling) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music ends) (attendees cheering) - That's all folks.

(attendees cheering) - That was Mitch Lawrence on the clarinet polka.

Not only is Mitch Lawrence a man of many talents, he's a man of many hats and we've gotten to see many of them over the years at the Wurstfest.

(upbeat music) From the dress, to the food, to the music and yes folks, even the beer, the most important thing at the Wurstfest is the people.

Families celebrating their German heritage.

Community members bringing a festival together, enthusiastic Texans, sausage stuffers and polka musicians.

All of which we've enjoyed sharing with you.

And now it's time for us polka cowboys to say adios amigos and mosey on home.

We'll see you down the trail on "The World According To Polka."

(singer sings indistinctly) ♪ And the polka never (upbeat music) (singer sings indistinctly) ♪ But he couldn't pass the test ♪ ♪ So he hung around town ♪ And he saw the little cloud ♪ Yeah, all that way was sunny and one day he got caught ♪ ♪ He was back in business and they set him free again ♪ ♪ Where the road goes on forever ♪ ♪ And polka never ends ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ Sonny is playing (sings indistinctly) ♪ (musician singer sings indistinctly) ♪ Where the road goes on forever ♪ ♪ And polka never ends ♪ (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music ends) (crowd cheers)