Beer has been an integral part of Munich life ever since the city was founded. In 1487, Duke Albrecht IV issued the Munich Purity Law, which specified selected hops, pure water and the best malt as the only permissible ingredients for Munich beer. Since then, it has been a matter of principle for Munich breweries to uphold the Purity Law and to brew beer exclusively from the raw materials and without additives. Besides the taste, this is certainly one of the reasons why the Munich beer is so popular all over Germany. But Munich's barley juice is not only famous nationally. 100 years ago, it started a triumphal procession around the globe and has been considered a delicacy ever since. A real success story - made in Munich.
Every year millions of people come to Munich to experience not only the Munich lifestyle but also the famous beer at the Oktoberfest. At the "Wiesn", as the people of Munich also call the Oktoberfest, only local beer from Munich breweries is allowed to fill the beer steins. One brewery that traditionally serves beer there is Spaten Brauerei. Spaten-Bräu starts brewing beer for the world's largest folk festival as early as spring. On the first day of the Wiesn, Munich's mayor himself taps a wooden barrel of Spaten Oktoberfest beer - and thus opens the festival. Providing the beer for the prestigious tapping is surely the dream of every Munich brewery.
Spaten-Bräu was founded in 1397 and, with over 600 years of tradition, is one of the oldest breweries still in existence in Munich. In 1807, the royal court brewmaster Gabriel Sedlmayr acquired the brewery and 60 years later it was Munich's largest brewery. 125 years ago, the first Münchner Hell left the Spaten brewery - at a time when only dark, sweet-malty beer was produced and drunk. Spaten thus acted as a courageous pioneer for the bottom-fermented Münchner Hell that later became so popular. Even today, Münchner Hell is the brewery's most popular beer, a real best-seller.
For MICE groups with 20 or more participants, Spaten-Bräu offers individual brewery tours. During the three-hour tour, the tour guide presents the brewery's range of products and explains interesting facts about the production process, the history of beer and the appearance and taste of the different varieties. Those who want to introduce their MICE guests to the taste of beer can book the tasting event, where not only beer is tasted, but knowledge about the storage of beer and the different beer glass shapes is also imparted.
For those particularly interested in beer, there are special themed tours as well as an event on Munich's beer history. All tours can be conducted in German or English. As an alternative to the guided tours, Spaten also offers special tastings for MICE groups of ten or more people. Five different beers are then tasted together with the Spaten expert.
Giesinger Bräu is a young brewery in Giesing - in the heart of Munich. Together with the brewmaster at the time, Steffen Marx brewed the first beer in an empty garage in 2006 and quickly gained a reputation with unusual fruit and spiced beers. Due to the success and increasing demand, traditional Munich beers were also added to the range. Today, Giesinger Bräu produces mainly unfiltered and thermally untreated beers and is the only brewery to use open fermentation tanks to produce top-fermented beers.
However, the capacity for beer production was quickly reached in the first production facility, the garage, and Marx had to look for new premises. So a brewery with brewhouse and Bräustüberl (a pub) was built at Martin-Luther-Straße 2, where food made from regional ingredients has been offered alongside beer ever since. In the pub, beer fans can enjoy not only the Giesinger Bräu range (the brewery's current range includes 14 traditional Bavarian beer varieties as well as modern craft beers), but also other drinks at art, culture, football and other regular events. Since 2020, Giesinger Bräu has also a new production site in Lerchenau (the WERK2 at Detmoldtsraße 40) in the north of Munich with its own deep well and bottling plant.
If you are interested in an unusual brewery tour in one of Bavaria's most modern breweries, you should visit the Giesinger Brewery in the north of Munich. What does over 10,000-year-old water from the deep well taste like and how does beer taste straight from the tank? What was it like in the garage back then? These and other questions will be answered during the 1.5-hour tour.
In addition to a water sample from the deep well, the participants are also allowed to taste two or three beers and are served Munich pretzels as a basis. Meets right next to the beer tank? No problem at Giesinger Bräu. The taproom in Martin-Luther-Straße can be rented for meetings and events with up to 90 seats. Events with a maximum of 199 people can also be held in the event room at the WERK2 location in the north of Munich.
