Affiliations: Paulaner, Hacker-Pschorr

While this is not technically a biergarten (it’s a restaurant in Marienplatz with street dining) I wanted to include it as it was the first beer I had when we touched down in Germany.

After the keys challenge our weary brains were on the verge of shutting down and we decided to go out for a beer in an attempt to stay up. We went out looking for the Augustiner Keller with nothing more than a memory of where it was. Unfortunately, at this point, the brain wasn’t a reliable tool and we ended up walking around the city centre without being able to find it. We headed back defeated to Marienplatz and sat down at the first place that had food. The waiter obviously sensed we were absolute rat shit and held our hands (figuratively) through the ordering and eating process. I got a Maß1 litre beer of Hacker-Pschorr and a wiener schnitzel which came with baked potatoes and salad. Sarah had a big fat steak and a Paulaner Weißierwheat beer. It was all incredible.

Sarah and I often agreed that we didn’t know if food just tasted better because we were finally on the ground or if it was genuinely good food. My guess it was a bit of both.

Trying again to find the keller and still not really knowing our way around the city was not making for a happy Sarah. After some more wondering in more the right direction (but not close enough) we walked into the Information Centre at HauptbahnhofMunich Central (Main) Station to look at the really big map. We figured out that we were going in the right direction, but one street over which was diverging away from the keller. Once we figured it out, we knew exactly where to go and I recognised all the landmarks along the way on the correct street from my last visit 4 years ago.

The place had not really changed and I got straight into some Augustiner Helles, a pretzel and obatzdadip: 2/3 soft cheese, 1/3 butter, paprika, spices and a splash of beer . I have long had this beer as my number one favourite in the world and wanted to make sure that this was not a ruling made on a basis of nostalgia or otherwise. It wasn’t, and this beer is still at number one! Augustinerbräu is the beer I recommend for non-beer drinkers and say “if you don’t like this, then you will definitely never like any beer”. The Helles is bright and mild with a very light malt flavour and makes for extremely easy drinking.

You’ve been warned.

Affiliation: Hofbräu

We stopped here for a break while walking through the English Gardens. Can you image walking through the Botanic Gardens in Geelong or Melbourne, enjoying the greenery, and then enjoying a froff and a bite mid-way through? It’s certainly possible in München!

By this stage we were pretty familiar with the self-service arrangement that biergartens have. I went up and asked for a lager beer Maß and as I was waiting for it to be poured, another guy picked up a pre-poured radlerbeer shandy off the bar. This guy was tonguing for a beer and I could tell that he didn’t want a lemonade-mix beer. The man pouring my beer kindly stopped the guy as he was about to take off with the radler. “That is a shandy” he says. Although said kindly and in his native tongue, the guy still wasn’t getting it. “…a lemonade mix” he rephrased. “Oh…. no.” the guy replied as he returned it to the bench. I scoff at these tourists! 🙂

I enjoyed some surprisingly good kartoffelsalatpotato salad, with a pretzel and obatzda shared with Sarah. It was a wonderfully sunny day and just perfect for beer drinking. That said, I only had a 1/2L and Sarah managed most of a 1L Weißier (with a little help from me).

In the middle of the garden, the Chinese Tower itself is quite awesome, but the areas around it are usually packed. We opted for some space a bit further out. On the day that we were there a brass band was playing from the tower – not a uncommon occurrence at this garden during biergarten season.

We returned to the keller on a Monday night to meet with one of Sarah’s old media buddies: Sasha. He is a very relaxed guy who is often globetrotting as part of his own business consulting company. There is a bit of a collective conciousness about that when you have a drink with Sasha things can get a bit crazy. Well, that night he managed to wrangle a table before we got there and we enjoyed a table service dinner and, by the end of the night, 3 Maß of Helles! It was one of a handful of times where I was actually having trouble speaking and had a to consciously force words out that were not forming correctly. As business owners often do, he put the bill on the credit card. I assume (and hope) it’s for tax write-offs!

In a night which contained so much beer, imagine my delight in discovering that there was a small hexagonal urinal building only meters from the front gate. This amazed me, because sure it was convenient, but it seemed unbelievably close to an area where hundreds were walking through. I also discovered that you do not have to go into the main toilets for ‘ones’ at this biergarten either. Upon approaching the toilets I saw a shipping container like structure at the front of the toilet block with a sign “Pissoir” mounted. Sure it looks like “pisser”, but often things are not as they seem (for example: in Germany, a bücherei sells books, not meat!). Upon closer inspection inside my fears were assuaged and the holy grail was found! I cursed the numerous times before where I went into the main toilets.

I don’t remember much of the train ride back from Hackerbrücke, except that Sarah had to get my ticket for me because I was unable to count how many rings we needed for the ticket. It was 1. Hackerbrücke to Rosenhiemer Platz is all in the innermost ring.

Affiliation: Augustinerbräu

Another day of walking extremes as we clocked up over 25,000 steps on the journeys of this day. After plenty of walking through Isartor and around Marienplatz (and finding that Milka Welt is closed until Autumn – nooooooo!) we caught the train out to Hirschgarten station, down some questionable temporary steel scaffolding stairs, along the railway line path and through some suburban sprawl to the Hirschgarten biergarten.

The park was buzzing with activity – barbecues, ball games, some sort of wooden curling game played by old men (think bocce meets a fast moving version of curling), chess, table tennis, kids running around the water park and of course the Hirschgarten namesake – deer! Children loved feeding grass to the deer.

Through all of this we found our way to the largest biergarten in Bayern (and supposedly the world) with over 8000 seats available. We were hungry but we were growing weary of the traditional fare offered in biergartens – mostly the same everywhere. Schweinehaxepork knuckle, Hendlroast chicken, some kind of wurst etc. These are fantastic accompaniments for a big session, not so much for a well rounded lunch (our feeling by this stage anyway).

Despite our desperate hunger we decided to forgo the goods on offer and high-tail it back to a Mexican restaurant that we had spotted earlier near Isartor. The food? It was all incredible. Sarah and I often agreed that we didn’t know if food just tasted better because we were shutting down and on the brink of collapse or if it was genuinely good food. My guess it was a bit of both.

We strolled through here mid-afternoon on a Sunday. At the time, it was the closest biergarten to our apartment that we knew of. The weather was great, sun beaming down but there were not many around in the biergarten.

I went inside and got two 1/2L Paulaner Helles for Sarah and I and we sat outside soaking up that sun. It had been raining for quite a bit previously, with some chairs still wet, so at this point we were making the most of the sun.

The beer was ok, but also expensive @ €8.60 for the two. Sarah didn’t like hers much and couldn’t finish it – I agreed that it was more ‘beery’ than most ones we’d had so far. When you’ve had your number one beer in the world for cheaper prices, it’s a bit hard to justify coming back here. We were in search of a ‘local’ but this one was not to be – we did not fall in love with it.

Affiliation: Augustinerbräu

It was a fair walk from Palaner am Nocklerberg, but my avid research of biergartens reminded me that this was a good garden for some reason, so we headed in that direction.

Unfortunately, about half way there I got desperate for a toilet break and there was still a long way to go. At this point Sarah had diverted into a graveyard to take photos and I had to follow her in to alert her to the situation. I felt ok if I kept moving. I weighed up my options and decided not to piss on the dead. Though it was a lush, quaint graveyard bound by solid 6m high walls. Surely some curse would befall me for performing such acts and I was too far away from home for anything to go wrong. It was tough going stopping at pedestrian lights along the way, but I did my best to keep moving. As we crossed the Wiesn (the grounds where Oktoberfest is held) I knew the end was in sight and got a “second wind of coping”. Sarah stopped to take photos of Lady Bavaria and it was then that I hit the wall.

This was getting serious. This could be an incident.

I led off with her half following behind, half focused on photos. I pointed the way to the biergarten and took off in that direction. Once at the gardens I strolled desperately down a wrong corridor in a building that was holding some sort of classes – no toilets in sight. I found my way around the other side of the building, walked through an indoor market and spied some respite. Not to get to graphic, but I think the flow had started before I was even lined up. I walked out and spotted Sarah walking across the courtyard and could tell that she was not happy because I had taken off and she had gone in the wrong direction. Part of me just rolled with the anger because the severity of the situation called for it …and I was now much more relaxed.

So we celebrated with some more beer! Sarah had some chips and was back to happy Sarah. I had some Leberkäse (what did I say about tricky Germans? It’s not liver or cheese – it’s a meatloaf) for the first time and it was fricken delicious.

What made it better was the cheapest biergarten Augustiner Maß that I have seen so far. €6.40, I think. Something about the vibe there was really great and it would be the perfect escape around Wiesn time if you just wanted a good beer. It is close by though, so I don’t know how many people might have the same idea.

After plenty of people-watching (particularly of the ‘caress my ear’ couple – Sarah knows what I’m talking about) and the end of a beer, it started to get cold. We trailed back to the U-Barn and thought we might see the Infinite Staircase on the way. I explained that it was in the middle of an office block so it might be hard to find. Usually when you look for these kinds of gems, they can be a bit tricky. We walked past and Sarah goes: “Oh, it’s right there!”. I turned to the right and sure enough, there it was nestled in between some office blocks in plain view. It was quite a surprise.

We chanced upon this inner city trendy after visiting the Midnight-Bazaar Market. It was about 3pm in the afternoon and no one was around. It looked cool and we put it in our mental biergarten map. It’s pricey but I hear they do good parties around Oktoberfest time (into the night, long after the Wies’n has closed).

Affiliation: Hofbräu

This has become our local.

We had always had this biergarten lined up for a visit before the Ball Park Music gig at Ampere. We enjoyed a few pre-show beers at Muffatwerk, which surprisingly turned out to be directly behind Ampere (where the gig was). They sell reasonably priced Hofbräu from the barrel and the biergarten has a friendly local vibe. Being so close to the Isar, it is apparently quite a popular stop for cyclists who ride the long track along the river. It’s a smaller capacity biergarten, which adds to the charm, but we’ve never struggled to find a seat. There are even some beach chairs for those who really want to relax!

Towards the end of our first beer there it started raining. We happened to be sitting close to the western wall of the biergarten where an automatic rain-proof canopy expanded out. We continued drinking and Sarah and I shared a look of “this place is awesome”. We had fallen in love and found our “local”.

We have been back recently and the staff are very friendly and are quite accommodating to people attempting to order in German. We had pretzels again, because they were so awesome and fresh last time and they didn’t disappoint this time either – the freshest we’ve tried so far.

Long story short: we love it. When we discovered it for the first time, we were cursing not getting there sooner. It’s a short stroll along the Isar from our apartment and definitely our closest biergarten. Anyone who comes to visit will probably be taken there first by us.