The Biergärten of Munich

The Biergärten of Munich have been a place I've dreamed of visiting since… sometime between the first Coopers Pale Ale that I sucked down between gulps of pizza and 2007. Shared tables and lots of people are horrifying concepts to me, but it seems like my love of wheat beers in litre steins outweighed that discomfort.

Beer Gardens are everywhere in Munich. I'm envious. River? Beer garden. Park? Beer garden. Historic building? Beer garden. View of a nice beer garden? Second beer garden. I allocated today for visiting as many of the great ones that I could. And the liquid flowed gratuitously all day. That is, it rained the whole time. Most of the beer gardens, sadly, were empty and looked like this:

The beer halls and restaurants attached to the gardens were still open. I was still able to drink beer by the litre and eat pretzels in some of the oldest, most esteemed halls of Bavaria. I started with a Dunkel for lunch in Hofbrauhaus. Then we went to the original Augistiner Keller for dinner (meat, cabbage) and another half-litre.

I quickly observed the customs in practice. Don't eat the pretzels in the baskets on the table, unless you want to pay for them. Radlers are half lemonade. Tip your service person, who hates you. Long-standing traditions.

Later in the evening it was still raining. We walked to the Löwenbräu brewery for my final beer of the day. I did everything right. I sat at one of the tables without a tablecloth, meaning it should be a self-service area. I paused a minute regardless, just in case I was served. So far so good. I then stood to look for the self-service area. There was a man with short, blond hair standing behind some taps and polishing glasses with a tea-towel. I approached him and tried my best to confidently pronounce, "Gibt es Selbsbedienung?"
"Sit down," he said, without really looking at me.

A thrill went through me. I'd made it to Germany.