Our tour with Kathleen covered many of the city's highlights and historical buildings so for the rest of the day, we decided to explore the other reason Munich is famous - its beer halls, or biergartens.
First, for those who have never been to Munich, we need to explain the concept of a beer hall. Like most everyone, we'd heard of Munich's beer halls (and Oktoberfest) but until you actually sit down to drink one of the local beers (and perhaps eat a meal) in a beer hall, you can't truly understand what the big deal is. When you pass through the tables set up outside a beer hall and enter the front door and start walking past tables inside, and keep walking and walking and walking, past more and more tables, and notice tables stretching out on both sides as far as your eye can see, then go out back and see even more tables, and upstairs where there are more tables, and nearly ALL of them are full of people drinking beer, well you figure our real quick what the big deal is. Bavarians really like their beer.
Each beer hall sells only its own brand of beers. The beer is either helles (light or blond in color, not in calories), dunkles (dark) or Radler (half lemon soda, half beer). And while the decor in each hall varies, they are all essentially the same - very large buildings filled with numerous tables, bar areas with constantly flowing taps, and bar maids who can carry up to five or six full mugs in each hand to their thirsty customers.
We actually began our biergarten tour the night before, during a "Welcome to Munich" group dinner, at the Augustiner Bier Hall, a place many Munchners consider to be the best in town (according to things we've read). We both ordered a helles, Tom a large, me a small, with our meal. We sat outside in the "garden" with our new friends and thoroughly enjoyed the beer, the food and the custom.
After our morning tour, we headed over to the Schneider Weisse Brauhaus. Schneider brews wheat beer which we both like. This cute sign hanging out front welcomed us. We sat across from the bar area with its numerous taps that were constantly flowing...and laughed when Tom's beer, from a bottle instead of the tap, was served in a wine glass. Both beers were very good and even in the middle of the afternoon, there was a good crowd of people enjoying a variety of wheat beers.
Next we went to the Paulaner Braushaus. The inside of this large hall seemed newer or recently updated compared to the previous ones we'd been to but there was no one inside. We decided to sit outside so we could "people watch" while we enjoyed our beer and french fries.
We took a break to go to evening mass at Frauenkirche, the Gothic, twin-domed cathedral that was Pope Benedict XVI's church (where he was an archbishop) until 1982, when he left for Rome to work with Pope John Paul II. It was a startling sight to exit mass into the plaza surrounding the church to see sidewalk biergartens filled with patrons.
Our final destination was the famous Hofbrauhaus. We had a feeling this would be our favorite and we were right. Besides the never-ending array of tables as far as you can see in all directions and the jovial patrons, there are three things you immediately notice in the Hofbrauhaus that distinguish it from other beer halls:
the racks of locked steins (for regular patrons)...
...the lively oompah band playing and singing entertaining drinking songs, in German...
...and men and women attired in traditional Bavarian clothing - lederhosen, feather hats and dirndls...
..enjoying their mugs of beer under their stammtisch (reserved) signs hanging above the tables where they meet regularly.
Naturally, the dinner menu was in German.We challenged ourselves to decipher the food choices without our German/English dictionary. After all, we'd been in Germany over a week now, we should recognize many of these words by now, ja? Nein. Our server kindly explained the entrees in English...
I have heard and read that the beer hall servers can hold up to ten full mugs of beer at a time (five per hand). I struggled to hold three in one hand...including an empty one...hurry up and take the picture!
This is probably the only photo Tom actually enjoyed posing for, as evidenced by his big grin. He and the male half of the couple who joined us for dinner thoroughly enjoyed our waitress' serving skills; every time she leaned over the table to grab our mugs or deliver new ones and our food, their eyes widened as they waited expectantly for her ample bosom to pop out of her low cut bodice...alas, they waited in vain.
Before we walked back to our hotel for the night, we peeked into the upstairs festaal (fest hall) where there is a nightly folk festival and all-you-can-eat buffet. The place was packed! Adolph Hitler reportedly gave his first speech before a large crowd in this room.
The combination of frothy beer, a festive atmosphere, and reasonably priced and tasty food are what propelled the Hofbrauhaus to the top of the list as our favorite Munich beer hall. But truly, all the beer halls we visited are winners in their own way, and we love the Munchners' zest for life and beer - YOLO!!