CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Paulaner brewery team; traditional folk dance in a beer hall; Oktoberfest; writer Tamara on the Hallertau hop trail OPPOSITE: German Hops Museum


PICTURES: München Tourismus/Frank Bauer, Jan Saurer, Tommy Loesch; Paul Murphy; Tamara Hinson


fast act ast factMunich’s


Oktoberfest runs until October 5 this year, and from September 19 to October 4, 2026


exper expert ASK THE


Samuel Bodley, trip manager, Contiki


“One of Munich’s most famous landmarks is Marienplatz.


This central square has been the city’s beating heart since 1158 and its [mechanical] glockenspiel puts on a


delightful show at 11am every day. As for a top tip for beer lovers, tell clients to look


out for restaurants and beer gardens displaying which official ‘Münchner Bier’


breweries they’re connected with. There are six, all with protected status, and the


earliest dates from the 1300s.”


brewery that wanted to offer a nod to the good old days, when locals would stop by similarly tiny watering holes for a quick beer and a chat with fellow imbibers, before going about their day. I ask my guide if the brewery serves its beer at


Oktoberfest and he laughs, explaining that the one behind the Stehausschank we’re currently in produces less beer in a year than breweries such as Augustiner serve in a single day at Oktoberfest.


HOP HISTORY


But one thing I’ve learnt about Munich is that some of the best insights into its beer-related history aren’t found in its breweries. The Bavarian National Museum is packed with priceless artefacts, including the oldest-known depiction of Easter, carved out of ivory in 1009. But its collection also has some seriously spectacular steins, including beautiful silver tankards from the 1600s, some with carved ivory sleeves depicting biblical scenes. Just as stunning are the ceramic versions from the 1700s, when steins depicting Chinese pagodas were popular with Bavaria’s elite. And then there’s the tiny Beer and Oktoberfest Museum at Sterneckerstraße 2. Proof of Germans’ love of beer comes in the form of a letter written in AD98 by Roman scholar Tacitus, who expressed his shock at the amount of beer they consumed, along with a tablet engraved with a beer recipe that was discovered in Mesopotamia and thought to date back to 2400BC. My favourite bit is the interactive screen where I learn about


50 2 OCTOBER 2025


The Hallertauer Hopfentour is a 108-mile hiking and biking trail that weaves between rolling, hop-filled fields


weird and wonderful steins, including one shaped like Munich’s Frauenkirche, a 15th-century church. Crafted by stein supremo Martin Pauson in 1890, it bears a lithophane (see-through porcelain relief) that depicts the statue of Bavaria standing in Munich’s Theresienwiese, which handily doubles as the location for Oktoberfest.


BEER BY BIKE Clients keen to venture beyond the city should consider hiring a bike and exploring the Hallertau, the world’s largest hop-producing region. It takes about 30 minutes to get from Munich to Rohrbach by train. This pretty village is surrounded by fields filled with trailing, vine-like hop plants secured to towering trellises. My destination is the nearby town of Wolnzach, home to the German Hops Museum. Getting there is easy – I simply join a stretch of the 108-mile Hallertauer Hopfentour, a hiking and cycling trail that weaves between rolling, hop-filled fields. Information boards on the route reveal fascinating facts about hops, such as how plants must be woven around stakes in a clockwise – not anti-clockwise – direction, otherwise they won’t grow.


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