Hofbräuhaus - Munich

An American was fined €1,260 for stealing two glasses from the Hofbräuhaus this week. Stealing glasses is a sport here. Everyone does it. But if a security guard challenges you on the way out, don't put up a fight. That's what this guy did and he got himself arrested and banged up for 4 weeks before being brought to trial and fined. Here's the news story (in German): Maßkrug-Dieb saß vier Wochen in Haft

Once you got drunk, which is the purpose of a visit to the HBH, remembering to remain completely casual, when some menacing body guard is hunting you down, and then... holding you down, seems like a tough proposition.

I wouldn't go there to drink. Hofbräu beer isn't very good and despite the history of the place (Hilter held meetings there) the beer comes out of electric taps. They have bands there but they are not as good as I have heard them in the past. The food is quite good. The service is usually very slow to non-existent (I have walked out a few times) and some of the waiters seem to have difficulty with arithmetic.

In summer the HBH has quite a nice beergarden... and Hofbräu beer is (from my recollection) made by Weihenstefan in Freising - the oldest brewery in the world - possibly to a different recipe, as Weihenstefan Original is flippin marvellous, having a heavy honey note to it. Best beer in Munich in my ever-so-modest opinion. > the beer comes out of electric taps Yes, you're right - its not real ale. And this isn't a country pub.

This pub concluded and capped off, truely, the best day of my life. I will never forget that day, nor this pub, for as long as I live. p.s. Even the Bavarian music is tollerable after a few litres or so...

We had bad experiences once in the Hofbräuhaus. The sauce with the Haxe was too salty, waiter was unfriendly and seemed to find it funny. At 23:25 we were asked to pay the bill, which was strange since they close at 00:00 and wanted to order more beers. End of the night the Service Leader told a business colleague "lass Ihre Glaß auf'm Tisch". He said that he would, but then was told "dann machen Sie das!" Unhappy at being treated in this manner, I tried to get his attention but he ignored me. After saying five times "entschuldigung" to get his attention and being just ignored, I tapped him on the shoulder. He then told me not to touch him and soon after he spoke with security who stood by us intimidatingly as if we had done something wrong. Sent fax last November to the Manager, Herrn Sperger. Received a reply saying that they will investigate the situation and contact me again. No response, so called and left a message. They said they would call me. No call. Called again yesterday and they took my number and said he will call me today... Hmmm... let's see! :) Problem is, there are so many customers passing through that I think it really doesn't interest them if anyone has bad experiences.

Well, eventually got a reply from HBH. The Service Leader has since lost his job as a consequence of my fax and a number of other incidents. We also received seven drinks tokens and were assured it would not happen again - should have a good night out then ;)

My tour group went to "RatHouse" as Aussies called it, in late aug 2005. We had an excellent time there, big giant litre steins made for great drinking, especially showing the Aussies that Canucks can hold our own! The only downside to the whole experience was that the waiter had a running tab for our entire group which was spread around at several tables. Through the course of a night many people moved around and some even left. At the end of the night when one of our poor blokes went to get "his" portion of the bill the waiter gave him a big shock 600 euro! So with what little people left behind we had to poney up what money we had in our drunken states to cover the others. We also had to make our way back to hotel since our bus left without the rest staying behind. So make sure you keep track of your tab especially in large group or you may get a surprise in the end!

Sorry to hear you had a bad time... nice mates you got. Rathaus, BTW, is the city hall.

My wife and I visited the HBH and had a wonderful time my wife is not a big beer dinker at all but what a trooper. She put up with me drinking alot. The beer from what I remember (I was drunk) was great. I do remember teaching the Japanese tourist there the CHICKEN DANCE. I felt like godzilla walking thru Tokyo,as I am 6FT tall and 280lbs we had so much fun looking forward to going back in December 2006.

this place is pure Americana, I mean Bavaricana... i've been there like twice and it wasnt a good vibe at all... i felt like i was at a freshmen dorm party or something... jesh... Real Bavarians and real Germans and all real Munich residents would never go there first unless they had out of town guests to impress, especially since it was where some guy named Adolf got his start...they do have good music and put on one heck of a tent at Oktoberfest at the Wiezn... i now live in Milwaukee and we have our OWN one here now.. I don't have to get on a Lufthansa and fly over the big pond to visit my homeland anymore!!! plus... now the gemuetlichkeit at our Brew city-HBhaus is authentic (its a college bar!!!) and the beer maedles snap to your attention for a beer, a shot of jager and a pretzel as fast as you can belt out the lyrics to Vienna Calling (R.I.P. FALCO)... i happen to be a German-American too (slight DNA drinking advantage) but definelty ALL party people are welcome at the HB on Milwaukee's Old World 3rd Street on the scenic Milw. River!!! Beer halls in Prague were quite good too but i was hated there because me and my girlfriend were Americans and we kept speaking german!!!, can't win sometimes so i'll stick to the one tried and true, tested and party approved here in Milwaukee and equally teutonic Cinci!!! Eins, Zwei, Zoooooophhhaaa!

erm Jan Rieger did you have your eyes open when you went there? didn't you see the Stammtische with the real Bavarian people sitting at them, next to the band. if you've only been there twice you're hardly an expert on saying who the clientele are. oh and Adolf didn't get his 'start' here, wtf are you on about? went there last week on Tuesday with my (half-German) boyfriend and his dad. as it was a seemingly out-of-season Tuesday we were expecting it to be dead but it was jammers! brilliant atmosphere! we had great food and service and chatted to others sat around us...a mix of tourists AND Germans and Bavarians. was a top laugh.

@ JR: "...now the gemuetlichkeit at our Brew city-HBhaus is authentic (its a college bar!!!)..."... yeah, for sure... the only person on this planet who can use the term "Gemütlichkeit" without soundin ridiculous is Gerhard Polt, everyone else has no idea and/or probably a yank... beer in a beer-hall isn't served by beer-mädels, a real mass is served by a stocky, most of the time not that great looking, "Bedienung", who actually is capable of carying at least 12 mass and not by some hooters-girls... no one drinks "Jägermeister" in a beer-hall, only kids and tourists do... Hitler was in the Bürgerbräukeller... no one gets hated in Prague for speaking German, but if you're obviously american, people may find it rather amusing... it goes "Oans, Zwoa, Gsuffa!" = eins, zwei, gesoffen/one, two, down it, and is never sung or played in real life, only in the HB cause the tourists want to hear it... The HB isn't only a beer hall, it's also a social institution in munich and munich-residents do go there... because of their "Stammtisch" or to not only to get "gemütlich" pissed, but to meet new people from other places - and these days (thanks to Lufthansa!) the people are from all over the world. If you like your hooters, college, "gemütlich", Jägermeister, Party HB back in the states that's cool, but don't expect the real HB to be like that. HB Milwaukee/Las Vegas/Shanghai... wherever, is a beer-hall suited for the local clientele - the real HB is the real HB.

AMEN!!!

The 1st floor is completely renovated, a beautiful "Stube" now. They serve traditional bavarian dishes, speciality : Spanferkel or Schweinshaxn. Civilized athmosphere here. Tourists love the athmosphere in the Schwemme(Bierhalle) on ground floor, as well as Munich locals, who go there for their Stammtisch. If you need a cool spot in summer, the beergarden in the courtyard and the terrace are just perfect to spent some relaxing time. Don't forget the beer, for many better than Augustiner!!

love this place its great

This tourist trap doesn't deserve any customers! Ignore the signs that say "We will gladly fill your glass if it isn't served full" - The waiters wont. The staff are about o% bavarian and 100% rude. They have a tendency to take glasses away before they are empty and - on our last visit - took an almost full beer away as they said we had taken it from another table. In short - go and take your friends to see the place but then take them for a real German experience in either the Augustiner (Kaufinger str.) or the Lowenbrau keller.

I live in Munich, and although there is a new management since April 2004, I guess that the service is still quite rude and the food in the beerhall is quite bad. In summer try the Biergarten or the tables outside the beerhall on the "Platzl".In general I also prefer the Augustiner at Kaufingerstrasse. By the way Hitler has held speeches in a lot of places in Munich (including the Hofbräuhaus and Löwenbräukeller). As far as I know the most authentic and the most gemütlich place is the "Fraunhofer" in the Fraunhoferstrasse. It is an old Munich restaurant with original interior and really friendly service. It is big but not as huge as Augustiner or the Hofbräuhaus.

Can someone help me get the lyrics for " In muenchen stedt ein hofbrauhaus" (I appologize for my german spelling)? In german of course, not english if ther even is such a translation Thanks in advance Kurt

Hofbräu München and Weihenstephan were both breweries to the Bavarian Royal Family and are now state owned and operated by the Bayerische Schlösserverwaltung(Bavarian Palace Department) and overseen by the Ministry of Finance. As most of the major Munich Breweries are now owned by foreign conglomerates (Ex.Interbev owns Spaten and Heineken owns Paulaner/Haacker-Pschorr) Münchners are very loyal and protective of HB. The preferred HB locale among the natives is the Hofbräu Keller located at the former brewery site. As for the dispensing of beer from an "Electric Tap", each one of those units runs about $10,000 USD and should guarantee a "Full Beer" every time. They were installed in the interest of establishing more consistency in dispensing. Overall the Hofbräuhaus is a great place to indulge in Bavarian culture, meet people from all over the world and drink some great beer. It is what it is - there really is no valid criticism - It is great place!

We went in February 2006 and it was a great experience. We ended up talking to Tobias and his friends at the Stammtisch table downstairs by the band. He was apparently the son of one of the owners. They invited the 4 of us to sit with them and we ate and drank the rest of the night with them. I got a complete tour of the bar and storage areas. I saw all the workings of the 10,000 USD dispensing systems mentioned in the above post, and even used them a few times. When the night was over, we did not owe a bill and we had DVDs and other souvineers to take home with us. He told us to finish up and the help would clean up after us. We sat in Munchen Hofbräuhaus for 30 minutes by ourselves while they got ready to lock the doors. We were the very last out the door excpet for the cleaning crew. You could not have planned a better first experience at the good ole HB.

During the meal the band plays the national anthem of each international diner on the night. On this particular night their had to be 1000 guest dining and at regular intervals the band would play the national anthem of each country. At a guess there would have had to have been 600 Koreans about 150 Japanese, 100 French and a hundred Poms or so and 2 Aussies me and my mate. Well you should have herd the raw when the Korean Flag came out and their national anthem was played. My mate leaned to me and said how the hell are we going to beat that mob in a yelling competition, after a few steins the Aussie flag cam out and then the good old National Anthem, yours truly jumped up on the table and let Rip “Aussie, Aussie Aussie, Oh! Oh! Oh!� Well what followed shocked us all. The whole hall repeated the chant not once but dozens of times with a little egging on from the 2 Aussies. For the rest of the night we had them bouncing around on tables like Kangaroo’s All of a sudden we had 1000 new mates the Korean guys lined up for beer belly fights with me, one after the other I knocked them down I lost count after about 20, These blokes really new about Aussie tradition I had to compete in sculling a litre stein. To my surprise I got beaten by a little fella but when he finished he passed out for the rest of the evening, the women all wanted to dance with us and get their photos taken (Who were we to decline such an offer) The excitement on the floor was better than the Brass Band infact once they realized that their guests were making their own fun they packed up and left.

Well, it was a while ago [1980] but we had a fairly good time in the Hofbrauhaus, where two Aussie sisters drank us under the table. No fancy beer taps then, just a huge guy wrestling kegs, whacking the bung out with a hammer, and in with a mere spigot. I remember one waitress carried 12 litres of beer at one go [5 in each hand with 2 on top!]and did that more than once. We also drank in the Mathauser [sp?] which had alternate oom-pah bands and fistfights among the locals that we had to break up.

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