It could be a scene from Bavaria but instead it is in the U.S. heartland city of Cincinnati, which celebrated one of the largest Oktoberfest events outside of Munich this weekend.

The dressing up and beer drinking is not all for show: This midwestern city has authentic German roots hidden in a neighborhood called Over-the-Rhine, which is slowly recovering from decades of poverty, urban decay and racial tensions.

Although only a minority of the German immigrants who settled in the United States actually came from Bavaria, Oktoberfest is widely seen as the quintessential Teutonic event.

At Cincinnati’s Oktoberfest, some 650,000 people flock to the main downtown thoroughfare where nine festival tents, beer gardens and numerous food stands transform the area for three days into a little Bavaria.

U.S. census figures show that more than 46 million Americans trace their roots back to German families, making German-Americans the largest ethnic group by national ancestry in the United States.

The area north of downtown Cincinnati overlooking the Ohio River was once home to more than 44,000 people, making it the second-most populated U.S. neighborhood outside of Lower Manhattan.

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