I have decided to visit Munich this coming weekend, and besides the museums and galleries, was wondering if either of the two major breweries offers drop-in tours? The web site for Lowenbrau is all in German and did not appear to give any indication of such tours. I am not able to find anything about Hofbrau. Has anyone toured either of them? I expect I would do it Friday afternoon. Also, any recommended beer halls and eateries? Thanks.

There is actually a book "Beer Tours of Munich". Very helpful if you can find one before you go.

You can tour Weihenstephan, the oldest brewery in the world (and an excellent beer) by calling the brewery when you are in Munich or in advance. They are sometimes heavily booked. Other breweries in the city: Augustiner, Hofbrau, Hacker-Pschor, Paulaner. Hacker-Pschorr has a large "fest Saal" with music, food and a folk show.. some people will be coming in costume as Fasching gets a start now. Hofbrauhaus also has a large Festsall, and a small more intimate one when there isn't much crowd.In any event the Hofbrau's ground floor beer hall will be open. It's kind of a fun evening to have dinner on the first floor (our second floor) and then go down for a few hours in the kind of rowdy beer hall on the ground floor ("die Schwemme").
Paulaner has a very nice restaurant-pub at their brewery... try the famous Paulaner doppelBock dark beer. In Dachau( mayube 20 minutes on the SBahn), there is a very cozy and great pub at the Ludwig Thoma brewery... near the castle. Probably the best beer in Germany, Ludwig Thoma draft.
Your hotel can probably help you identify other beer halls... there are many, though not as many anymore with live music.

Have a wonderful time!

K�nnen Sie nicht Deutsch verstanden?

I dunnow about M�nchen, but K�ln has a whole bunch of places that brew K�lsch and give tours (I have taken the Kuppers tour). I presume there are tours, considering the huge affair that goes down there every October! Maybe you may want to take an LH domestic flight and visit another city[?]

[This message has been edited by Fly Boy (edited 01-30-2001).]

Thanks Phil. Will follow up on some of your suggestions.

Fly Boy, my linguistic skills are limited to English, French, Latin and Spanish. If I ever get back to northern Germany, I shall keep your Cologne recommendations in mind. Since this is a 3-day weekend trip, however, I will be restricting myself to Munich and its offerings.

Hey Shareholder.....I'm flying to Munich this weekend too Its a great place and great food too. Although its really touristy, you must go to the Hofbrauhaus. Not a great place to eat but the bier & pretzels are great. If you want real german food try the Franziskanner (sp?). Email me if you want to try to grab a bier!

I'll be in Nurenberg... must be the time of year to visit Germany.

That's a shame shareholder. Here's a possibly useful tip. The kid that does my website put up something neat when I was away, that allows any of the 100 pages on that site to be translated into 5 major languages including German. Costs me nothing and is pretty amazing I think. Qute a few sites now have this up, and clearly you can enter your Beer website into the tranlator company, who seem to be called "GO"? sorry I don't know more, this 15 year kid does it all, but must be darn handy for reading foreign language sites.

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~ Glen ~

Shareholder, you've got mail.

Thanks again, all. And especially to essxjay for assembling notes from numerous other FlyerTalkers who have sample this city. That's what community is really about. Hopefully we can share that lager or two at the Hoffbrau on Saturday afternoon MileTex

OMG .. drinking with MileTex .. THAT brings back memories .. hope we see a trip report on that weekend Shareholder?!

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~ Glen ~

Unfortunately, MileTex got stuck in FRA, so I had to drink that litre-sized mug alone, albeit amongst hundreds of others...

Not much to warrant the usual Trip Report, I'm afraid. I guess part of the reason was being overcome by more serious experiences in the city, having visited Dachau on a cold, overcast, snowy Friday afternoon and recognizing what it had to say about the history of this region. It is hard to imagine such a thing happening in a quiet suburb of a large city, and not being more isolated in a remote corner of Poland or some other conquered territory out of sight from the locals. But it did happen within sight of Munich. We can't really overlook this reality of an otherwise hospitable city and its residents.