Newport festival offers dozens of food options and draws from all over

After more than 20 years, the Glier’s Goettafest is expanding in Newport. Goetta lovers will have not one but two weekends to enjoy the “Celebration of All Things Goetta” — this weekend, July 28-31, and next, Aug. 4-7.

The festival, at Festival Park at the Levee, is free to attend and will delight goetta lovers’ palates as more than 50 items — everything from fudge to pizza — include goetta as an ingredient. Burritos, Philly goetta sandwiches, goetta-loaded potato pancakes, goetta mac, chunky Nati chili, you name it.

Goettafest, which started as “little more than a goetta gathering in 2001,” according to the festival website, will go on for eight days over the two weekends for the first time. The festival draws goetta lovers from throughout the country.

Goetta, pronounced “get-uh,” is a German dish. As a mixture of pork, beef, steel-cut (pinhead) oats, onions and spices, it often is described as or compared with breakfast sausage or scrapple.

You can buy goetta T-shirts and other collectible Glier’s Goetta souvenirs at the festival or buy a roll goetta from the world’s only goetta vending machine. Almost 40 musical acts will provide entertainment during the Goettafest. Games also will be part of the activities available.

Hours are 5 to 11 p.m. Thursday and Friday, noon to 11 p.m. Saturday and noon to 9 p.m. Sunday.

Glier’s Goetta roots go back to 1946, when Robert Glier returned home from World War II and bought a small store with a sausage kitchen and a smokehouse, the company’s history says. He made sausages as his wife, Louise, assisted customers. In the winter months, he created his version of goetta, which became the cornerstone of Gliers Meats Inc.