Beer & Breweries

The six Munich breweries, the beer garden as a legal category rather than a style, Oktoberfest, and what the Reinheitsgebot does and does not mean. Munich's global reputation, explained practically.

The front of a beer tent at the Oktoberfest on the Theresienwiese — Photograph by Andreas Steinhoff, Wikimedia Commons, Attribution

Munich's global reputation is beer, and almost everything written about it for visitors is atmosphere rather than information. The practical version is more interesting.

A beer garden is a legal category, not a style. Under long-standing Bavarian practice, now codified, traditional beer gardens must let you bring your own food and buy only the drink. That single rule explains the tables of people with their own bread, radishes and boards — they are not being cheap, they are using the garden as intended.

Inside a crowded Oktoberfest beer tent — Photograph by kallerna, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Oktoberfest is a Volksfest — a funfair with beer tents attached — first held in 1810 for the wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig. It draws around seven million people to the Theresienwiese, and only the six Munich breweries may pour there. Tables in the tents are free to enter but reservations take most of the seating at peak times.

The chestnut trees over the older gardens were planted for a reason: they shaded the cellars where beer was stored before refrigeration.

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