Hofbräuhaus

“In Munich there’s a brewery – one, two, and drink!” The catchy original refrain is well known to all Germans, even if they have never been to Munich. The song about the world-famous guesthouse has been sung as a popular song for years on Shrove Tuesday, Carnival and other great festivals in Bavaria and beyond.

With its simple melody – composed by a Berliner and not by a Bavarian, by the way – it is almost impossible not to cast off your inhibitions and sing along. It’s no surprise that there are songs about the Hofbräuhaus, since it is one of the world’s best known gastronomic spots. This palace of beer is in Munich’s old town on Platzl Square. Today, this former royal brewery is now officially known as the “Staatliches Hofbräuhaus in München”, with its registered office in the outskirts of the city. It is also the owner of the Hofbräuhaus on Platzl, offering 3,000 seats for its guests. The so-called “Schwemme”, the large beer hall on the ground floor has space for 1,000 at wooden tables. The upper levels have a large festival hall with a nine-metretall arched slab and several smaller rooms.

The Hofbräuhaus can look back on a good 400 years of history. It started out under a rather spoilt royal household: in the 16th century, the authorities at the court of Bavarian Duke Wilhelm V did not appreciate the locally brewed beer and had it delivered from Einbeck in Lower Saxony. Eventually this became too expensive and, on 27 September 1589, the duke decided to establish his own court brewery in Munich.

There, in the “brown brewery”, a typically strong, brown beer was produced. To retain the flavour they had become used to, the court engaged the services of the brewer Elias Pichler from Einbeck. The name of his beer “Ainpöck”, derived from his home town, quickly became known in the local dialect as “Bock”, a word used to this day for the strong dark beer. Shortly thereafter, wheat beer was also brewed. The capacity of the old brewery quickly became inadequate and wheat beer production was moved to a different building. The “white brewery” on Platzl was born and the Hofbräuhaus stands on the same site to this day.

While the brewery was at first an exclusive concern for the nobility of the court, it became a lucrative business in time. In 1828, Ludwig I was the first to permit “Gastung” – in other words, public bars. Since then, the man on the street has been able to enjoy the beer of the nobility at the Hofbräuhaus. With tourism on the rise, brewing had to be moved off-site at the end of the 19th century to make more space for visitors.

The Hofbräuhaus also became renowned outside Germany and it is one of the most important international tourist attractions in Germany today. Countless registered visitors come regularly, some of them have their own tankard in a lockable “tankard safe” in the main drinking hall. The most famous visitor is the angel Aloysius from the satire “A man from Munich in heaven”. Alois Hingerl, the late commissionaire was sent back to earth as a messenger – and his first port of call was, of course, his old local, the Hofbräuhaus.

The Munich band “Spider Murphy” also produced a satire in the early 1980s, “Skandal im Sperrbezirk” starting with the lyric “In Munich, there’s a Hofbräuhaus but brothels have to go”. But this kind of attack cannot tarnish Bavarian self-esteem. The joy of collective beer drinking in large rooms has found a huge following far beyond Bavaria and Germany. Many places have attempted to replicate the Hofbräuhaus, and licensed replicas can be found in many places. The first was in New York in 1903, although Prohibition meant it had to close shortly thereafter. In 1999, the Hofbräuhaus opened in Dubai, and copies subsequently opened in Cincinnati in 2003 and in Las Vegas in 2004. Even Asians enjoy the Hofbräuhaus’ unique atmosphere – there is a Hofbräuhaus in Jiangyin, near Shanghai, since 2003.

Alun Hill MCIJ