Munich Beer Gardens, Historic Beer Halls and What to Eat

Beer in Munich is part of the city's daily social fabric, brewed strictly from water, barley malt, hops and yeast under the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot of 1516. Six historic breweries operate inside Munich's city limits: Augustiner (founded by monks in 1328 and still the runaway favourite of locals), Spaten, Paulaner, Hacker-Pschorr, Hofbräu and Löwenbräu, alongside wheat-beer specialist Schneider Weisse.

Beer gardens versus beer halls: our five favourites

1. Augustiner-Keller (Arnulfstraße, near Hauptbahnhof): a 19th-century beer cellar shaded by over a hundred ancient chestnut trees, where pale Edelstoff lager is still tapped by gravity directly from wooden barrels (Holzfassbier).
2. Viktualienmarkt Beer Garden (Altstadt): right in the middle of the daily food market two minutes from Marienplatz, rotating its taps through all six Munich breweries. Buy smoked fish, mountain cheese and warm pretzels from the surrounding stalls and sit at the bare wooden tables.
3. Chinesischer Turm and Hirschgarten: the Chinese Tower in the English Garden pours Hofbräu beneath a wooden pagoda, while the Königlicher Hirschgarten near Nymphenburg is the largest beer garden in the world (8,000 seats beside a deer enclosure), pouring wooden-cask Augustiner.
4. Hofbräuhaus am Platzl: founded in 1589 as the royal court brewery. Go at 10:00 for a quiet morning Weißwurst breakfast under the painted vaults or sit in the inner courtyard arcade.
5. Augustiner Stammhaus and Schneider Bräuhaus: for a traditional sit-down dinner in the Altstadt, head to Augustiner's Neuhauser Straße restaurant or to Schneider Bräuhaus in the Tal for ruby-amber Aventinus wheat doppelbock.

Five Bavarian dishes to order

• Weißwurstfrühstück (White sausage breakfast): delicate minced veal and pork sausages served in a tureen of hot water (peel the skin off rather than eating it) with sweet grainy mustard (süßer Senf), a warm pretzel (Brezn) and a cloudy wheat beer (Weißbier) before noon.
• Schweinshaxe and Schweinsbraten: slow-roasted pork knuckle with crackling skin, or sliced roast pork shoulder in dark malt-beer gravy alongside a potato dumpling (Kartoffelknödel).
• Obatzda and Radi: ripe Camembert mashed with butter, sweet paprika and caraway, eaten with giant pretzels and spiral-sliced white beer radishes.
• Leberkässemmel: a thick, warm slice of oven-baked meatloaf tucked into a crusty roll with sweet mustard at a Viktualienmarkt butcher counter.
• Käsespätzle and Kaiserschmarrn: Alpine egg noodles baked with melted mountain cheese and crispy onions, followed by shredded caramelised pancake with plum compote.