The Beer Drinker's Guide to Munich

A Field Manual to Enjoy the Best the "Beer City" has to offer

Welcome To The bdg2m

We will make a few assumptions:

  • You are visiting Munich, and one of the reasons is you love beer.
  • You've heard how good the beer is in Germany, especially in Munich, and you want to find out if it is true.
  • You already have a Munich guide with museums, churches, restaurants, suggested hotels in every price range, and a lot of history about the city and sights to take in.
  • Unfortunately, those guidebooks only touch on a few beerhalls and beer gardens, usually restricted to the city center, and nothing about suburbs and even daytrips that feature breweries, large beer gardens and plenty of beer.
  • If our assumptions above are even close, you've come to the right place.

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Above: Hofbräuhaus, Biergarten Viktualienmarkt, Bräustüberl Tegernsee

The Beer Drinker's Guide to Munich is a complete guide to discovering beer and places to enjoy it in the city, its suburbs and nearby environs and a few far-flung destinations that can be reached (round-trip) in a single day. Here are a few of the book's features within its 252 pages:

  • Getting around with public transportation. A complete introductory chapter will break you in easily so you can use the city's multi-tiered public transport system (U-bahns, S-bahns, buses and street cars) to reach each and every one of these beer oases with minimum effort and very little hassle. Personally hand-drawn maps from the POV of the person on foot make it easy to travel the last 100 meters (or less) without getting lost. The inside back cover of the book is a full-color map of Munich's comprehensive transit system.
  • Beer. As we like to say, you know what you like, but you'd like to know a lot more about why that is. Here are several chapters devoted to Munich (and Germany's) beer styles and the "Big Six" primary Munich breweries that have been fermenting and serving the suds for some 800 years.
  • Free Beer! No, that is not a typo. There are seven BOGO (you buy one, get another free) beer coupons in the back of the book. They are limited to only the BEST (5-beer rated) beer gardens in Munich. Use a couple, or even all seven to buy any size beer up to a liter, and you will easily be paid handsomely for having this book in your possession while you visit the best beer gardens Munich has to offer. If you must, you can use the coupon for sodas and soft drinks as well. Now, how good is that?
  • Master Beer Map. This is a cross-referenced overlay of the transit map with beer garden and beerhall locations across Munich that are in the book.
  • Proper Beer Drinker's Etiquette. Not exactly Emily Post, but we'll keep you from feeling like you've got a communicable disease when you rub elbows with seasoned German table-mates.
  • The Beerhalls and Beer Gardens. The bulk of the book is dedicated to mini-chapters on more than 70 beerhalls, beer gardens and beer restaurants and pubs in and around Munich. Each establishment is featured along with its history, primary features like the beer served and seating, along with opening hours, addresses and phone numbers. And each has a map that will make certain you don't have to waste time finding them. "So many beer gardens, so little time" is not just our motto, it's what we try to recognize when we give you the best chance to see and enjoy as much of Munich's beer culture in the time you have to do it. Also, we rate each beer establishment on a 10-point scale (in half-beer increments) so you'll at least know which ones we feel are the best, and that can save you a ton of time as well.
  • Day Trips. Farther afield, but here's a chance to visit three monastery breweries (one just across the border in Salzburg, Austria) and another suburban brewery in nearby Aying, as well as a lakeside brewery-pub in Tegernsee and a palace beer garden in, of all places, Dachau (yes, that Dachau).


    The Big Six Munich brewsThe Big Six Munich brews
    Six Munich brews have made the city famous: Augustiner, Hacker-Pschorr, Hofbräu, Löwenbräu, Paulaner and Spaten.