Prost!
Sit, sip, and socialize in comfort in the more than 100 beer gardens located in Munich.
By Tom Bross

The city of Munich is perhaps best-known as the site of the annual Oktoberfest, during which more than 7 million revelers from around the world consume nearly 1 million gallons of beer. Anyone thinking about delving into the carnival-like atmosphere of Oktoberfest should be prepared for the bells and whistles of amusement rides, jam-packed beer tents, and the loud, thumping sounds of the oompah bands. In the warmer months, however, enjoy a more peaceful alternative to Oktoberfest with a visit to a beer garden.

Beer gardens exemplify the Bavarian ideal of gemütlichkeit, with an emphasis on congeniality rather than hell-raising and nobody urging you to chug-a-lug yourself into a state of silliness. The idea simply is to sit, sip, and socialize in a casual outdoor gathering place. More than 100 such havens can be found within Munich's city limits.

A sampling of beer gardens

Several beer gardens are conveniently situated in Munich's historic city center. There's a secluded beer garden behind downtown's Augustiner Gaststätte, an old-time restaurant that faces St. Michael's Church, where 40 members of the Wittelsbach dynasty (among them the famous King Ludwig II) lie entombed in the crypt. From there, meander via pedestrian-only Neuhauserstrasse to the Marienplatz, Munich's busy town square, where tourists cram the pavement at 11 a.m. and noon to watch a show put on by mechanical figures in the neo-Gothic Neues Rathaus tower's clinking, clanging 43-bell glockenspiel.

A comfortable beer garden adjoins the Viktualienmarkt, Munich's preeminent open-air farmers' market since 1807. Here, a cornucopia of fresh produce, meats, cheeses, and baked goods is purveyed by grumpy women wearing no-nonsense country clothes (who will bawl you out if you squeeze a stalk of asparagus or sniff a pungent wedge of Limburger). This people-watching paradise opens at six every morning, early enough for restaurant chefs to shop for daily necessities.

The English Gardens, Munich's 3-mile-long city park, is home to four beer gardens, each one distinguished by its own character. Zum Aumeister, part of a 19th-century hunting lodge, is big and cosmopolitan. An urban crowd gathers at the Seehaus, which overlooks Kleinhesseloher Lake, a habitat for flocks of swans and ducks. A beer garden surrounding the Chinese Tower accommodates some 7,000 people and attracts a diverse crowd. The Hirschau is less crowded, with perhaps the best food of the four - try the Steckelfisch.

Other beer gardens are appreciably more neighborly and intimate, the kind worth seeking out for the reward of mixing in with gregarious Müncheners. The Max Emanuel Brauerei is located in Schwabing, a student district with an offbeat edginess reminiscent of London's Soho or New York's Greenwich Village. This beer garden is virtually next door to Ludwig-Maximillian University and two blocks from the Florentine-style Bavarian State Library. Moreover, you can stroll a short distance east from there to reach the English Gardens greenery.

GET MORE INFORMATION

The Munich Tour Office, at Sendlinger Strasse 1, is close to the Marienplatz. You'll find another such facility in the Hauptbahnhof (main railroad station). Also at your service: a visitor information counter in the arrival hall at Franz-Joseph-Strauss Airport. The best city maps indicate locations of the major beer gardens. For advance information, contact the German National Tourist Office, 122 E. 42nd St., New York, NY 10168-0072, (212) 661-0072; or log on to tourist information sites covering Germany and Munich via TROA's links page, www.troa.org/magazine/links.asp.

In western Munich, you'll find the 8,000-seat Hirschgarten, close to the baroque castle Nymphenburg. This former summer palace for long-gone Wittelsbach royalty embellishes a 495-acre park; the large, shady garden is filled with locals. And at the Taxisgarten, couples linger over beer and spareribs while their kids slide and swing on the playground.

Laid-back folksiness prevails at the Hofbräukeller, close to where traffic swirls around Wiener Platz and political big shots tend to government affairs in the Bavarian State Parliament building. To come to this eastern part of Munich from downtown, cross the Ludwigsbrücke (bridge) spanning the Isar River into Munich's hilly, artsy Haidhausen neighborhood. Haidhausen residents have bragging rights to the Gasteig cultural center, the architecturally rakish hall of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.

If you prefer a bucolic ambience, opt for Zum Flaucher, on an Isar River island and not far from the Hellabrun Zoo in southern Munich. Or view the Isar's steep gorges at the 2,000-seat Waldwirtschaft Grosshesselohe ("WaWi" in spoken shorthand), located in northern Munich.

Choosing Luitpold Park's Bamberger Haus terrace lets you view nearby Olympic Park, developed for the 1972 Summer Games. Noticeably prominent: the Olympic Tower; the transparent tented stadium roof; and the Olympiaberg, a turf-covered artificial mini-mountain constructed from World War II rubble transported here from the bombed-out city center.

If you do want to go to the Oktoberfest, the beer bash runs from mid-September to the first Sunday in October. Be prepared for the crowds of people, who manage to wipe out 750,000 barbecued chickens, endless tubs of sauerkraut, countless thousands of soft pretzels, and half a million grilled pork sausages, washed down with copious amounts of beer.

The fest began as a gala wedding party on a midcity meadowland named Theresienwiese (nicknamed d'wies'n) in honor of Princess Thérèse von Sachsen-Hildburghausen. Her October 1810 betrothal to Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig caught everyone's attention, thanks in no small part to horse racing and free beer.

If you visit Bavaria in the colder months when the beer gardens are closed, remember that each of Munich's six breweries includes an indoor, woodsy, chummy Bierkeller.

The beer garden heritage

Some of Munich's drinking places are more trendy than traditional. The Augustinerkeller's proximity to the state's main broadcasting studios means you may bend elbows and nibble on appetizers with television personalities. Schwabing's air-kissing, height-of-fashion extroverts like to be seen at St. Emmeramsmühle. While Bavarian dirndl dresses and lederhosen shorts go well with brass band and accordion polkas in the Hofbräuhaus (the best-known German beer hall, in business since 1589), regulars at the Nachtcafé flaunt the latest Jil Sander and Karl Lagerfeld designer ensembles.

The social heritage of beer gardens in this part of Germany is as venerable as the pub culture in England and Ireland. In prerefrigeration days, storage cellars were situated alongside Bavaria's cold-flowing streams, with the shade of large-leafed chestnut trees performing an added cooling function during the six-month aging process - just the setting for a beer garden. Some clever proprietor came to that conclusion, envisioning fair-weather family gatherings and a ready-made clientele for each season's fresh output.

Despite modern-day changes that keep creeping in, the city's most familiar, longest-existent beer gardens share certain characteristics, among them long wooden tables and benches, strings of twinkling lights, and crunchy white gravel underfoot. Larger beer gardens ordinarily stay open until midnight, while those in residential areas close at about 10 p.m.

Music used to be verboten. Now, though, oompah bands do their thing at a few locales. Jazz combos have become staples at WaWi on Sundays and at Schwabing-West's small-size Elisabethmarkt on Saturdays.

Munich's staunchest traditionalists wouldn't expect their beer to come in anything other than a standard, one-liter glass mug called a Mass. Cost per fill-up ranges from $3.50 to $5.50. For hot-weather sipping, a Radler blends equal parts lemonade and beer. Request a Russenmass if you'd prefer a spritz of Coca-Cola instead.

Want to pack your own Brotzeit meal of bread, cheese, and sausage? Perfectly okay, if you consume it at a bare table, which indicates self-service, with sudsy drinks on tap at the bar and more food available at booths. Prefer waitress service instead? Then head for a cloth-covered table.

The self-service concept dates back to an 1846 edict. By proclamation of King Ludwig I, citizens were permitted to bring their own food to public beer gardens. Thus the same Wittelsbach monarch who made the capital a major artistic metropolis also made beer gardens affordable, democratic attractions.

	GET MORE WITH TROA
	Call your TROA Vacations professionals for Oktoberfest tours, with three nights to explore the beer gardens of Munich, plus Neuschwanstein, Innsbruck, Vienna, Salzburg, and a half-day Danube cruise. TROA members receive special amenities. Call toll-free, (800) 211-5107, or e-mail mail@troavacations.com.

What's in the beer

Munich, Bavaria's proudly flag-waving capital, ranks high as Germany's beer-drinking capital. Of the 1,270 breweries located in Germany, half can be found in Bavaria, where 88 million gallons of beer are poured into kegs, bottles, and cans yearly. The state's Hallertau Valley, north of Munich, produces more hops - an essential ingredient - than anywhere else.

German breweries adhere to a basic recipe consisting of hops, barley malt, yeast, and water. There are no chemical additives and no preservatives, in accordance with 1516's Rheinheitsgebot, the world's oldest food-purity law, promulgated by Duke Wilhelm IV. Beer has been the nutritious, high-caloric liquid meal of the countryside's farm folk since medieval times.

A relatively tame 4.5 percent to 5 percent alcoholic content typifies the standard lagers. The Bock "muscle beers" pack a 7 percent to 7.5 percent wallop. Weissbier, uniquely Bavarian, substitutes wheat for barley and, in this land of beer perfectionists, must be served in its own tall, slender, triangular glass. Some add a slice of lemon.

The city's beer reputation has some quirky aspects. Students can work toward a brew master's degree at the prestigious Technical University of Munich. Munich-born composer Richard Strauss's grandfather ran the Pschorr (now Hacker-Pshorr) brewery; the composer dedicated his opera Der Rosenkavalier to his very wealthy elders. When a fire broke out in the National Theater in 1825, beer was used to douse the flames - then a stiff beer tax was levied to pay for rebuilding.

Fast-forward to 1994's Beer Riots. Neighbors' complaints about the after-dark noisiness at WaWi led to a court-ordered early evening closing time. The result: 20,000 protesters took to the streets, not simmering down until compromises were reached.

To peace and harmony, and to Munich's otherwise amiable beer garden scene: Prost!