We only had a short stopover in Munich but really wanted a proper session in a proper Münchner Biergarten. Goldilocks style, we ended up visiting three.
We wrote before about how much we like “discovering” neighbourhood beer gardens in Munich, mostly by spotting green spaces on the map. This time we headed for the river Isar and started walking south where there were many potential destinations depending on how much we had in our legs after a week tramping around Brno and Rosenheim.
Well, it turned out there wasn’t much gas left in the tank, so we stopped at Isar Alm, a very casual cash-only community beer garden.
By Munich standards, it was a rather intimate beer garden, space for perhaps a mere couple of hundred people only. On a Monday afternoon, there was us, an older couple, and a few family groups taking advantage of the mini-playground.
It felt a bit like being in East Bristol, perhaps in the garden at The Farm in St Werburghs, and by German standards, everything was a touch tatty and muddy. There were lots of bikes parked outside.
We enjoyed our Hofbräu Helles but it wasn’t the most scintillating encounter with this only ever perfectly fine beer that we’ve ever had and we found ourselves longing for more Augustiner.
We thought about exploring further but we decided that with limited time we couldn’t risk it and should head for what we know.
We schlepped over a hill, past a couple more beer gardens on the way, and got a tram back into town.
The Augustiner Keller on Arnulfstraße is pretty handy for the Hauptbahnhof and so we’ve been there plenty of times. With acres of tables, a brass band setting up, and huge whispering trees overhead, it looked idyllic.
What we hadn’t realised is that in beer garden season, this lovely garden only offers (a) litre Maßkrugs between 5pm and 11pm and (b) Edelstoff, Augustiner’s stronger export beer.
Actually, we think you could also get Weizen and Dunkles but the key point for us was that you cannot get Helles which is what we were craving.
Still, it was an opportunity to try Augustiner Alkoholfrei (Jess) alongside the Edelstoff (Ray) and, while the AF is decent enough, Jess didn’t particularly want to drink a litre of it. Even the best alcohol free beers don’t tend to survive much warming up so it seems bizarre to us that you’d only serve it by the litre.
We got into a bit of a sulk about all of this and decided that, actually, this beer garden wasn’t quite as idyllic as we recalled. But, on reflection, we suppose when you have hundreds of tourists every night, many of whom still get excited about the novelty of beer by the litre, then it’s probably good business sense to limit the range and volume served.
Handily, Munich’s public transport system is excellent and while we were forcing down litres of beer we didn’t particularly want, we came up with plan C.
The Augustiner Schützengarten is a large beer garden spread out towards the back of some kind of former palace or mansion house. Like the charming Michaeligarten, the self-service setup is on the brusque and efficient side.
It’s still Maßkrugs only but you can at least get a Schnitt (less beer, more foam) and, this time, only Helles and Weizen.
We stayed for a few hours, deeply contented, enjoying shivering with evening chill for the first time in what felt like months. As darkness fell strings of lights came on and it felt like a fairytale.
It was, per Goldilocks, just right.
