Beer in Munich: brewery tour, beer garden or beer hall?
Updated October 13, 2026 · 6 min read
If you want a guided evening with dinner in it, book the Beer and Food Tour with dinner and the Oktoberfest Museum: €72 per person, 4.7 stars from 1,213 reviews, 3.5 hours, in English. If dinner is not the point, the walk is €49. And you do not need a tour to drink beer in Munich: the beer gardens cost nothing to walk into, and the section after the table explains how they work.
The tours compared
| Tour | Price | Duration | Language | Included |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beer and Food Tour with dinner and Oktoberfest Museum | €72 | 3.5 hours | English | Tastings, beer museum, Bavarian dinner |
| Beer Halls and Breweries: 3-hour guided tour | €49 | 3.5 hours | English, German | Brewery entry, two half-litre beers, food |
| Beer & Beyond Tour | €35 | 3 hours | English | 1.5 litres of beer; food extra |
| Hands-on brewery tour with 4 organic beers | €26.50 | 1 hour | German | One family brewery, four beers |
| Bike tour with beer garden break | €40 | 4 hours | See listing | Sights by bike, lunch in a beer garden |
What each one is like
The €72 evening. Its listing is the most detailed. You start with a beer and an introduction to Munich brewing, from the medieval brew-women to the Purity Law of 1516, taste several beers with cheese and meats, then take a private tour of the Beer and Oktoberfest Museum and visit the Hofbräuhaus, before a Bavarian dinner at a reserved table in a beer hall. Hotel pickup is not included. Come hungry: the listing asks you not to eat beforehand, and says vegetarian options are possible with notice. Unaccompanied minors are not allowed, and it is not meant for stag parties.
The €49 walk. It starts at Marienplatz, in front of the tourist information office, where the guide holds a yellow sign; the listing asks you to arrive 15 minutes early. It takes you to what the listing calls Germany’s oldest commercial brewery, includes the entrance fee, two half-litre beers and some food, and ends with a litre at the Hofbräuhaus. Children under 16 are listed as not suitable, and intoxication is not allowed. It is the cheaper version of the same idea, at €23 less.
The €35 evening. This is the party version. The listing promises up to three beer gardens and halls, 1.5 litres of beer including some from wooden barrels, and a trophy for the “Beer Champion” at the end; food is sold along the way but is not included. It starts near the main station, and nobody under 18 is allowed. Stag and hen groups are excluded and are pointed to a private booking. It has 244 reviews against more than a thousand each for the other two, so its 4.7 rests on less.
The €26.50 brewery visit. A different sort of tour, and the only one here that is really about brewing: a one-hour tour of a family-run organic brewery with a malt and hop tasting and four beers. It runs in German and the brewery is out of the centre, a ten-minute walk from the Großhadern U-Bahn station. Choose it if you care about how beer is made more than where it is drunk.
The bike tour. Several bike tours include a beer-garden stop; the two with the most reviews: one starts at Marienplatz at 11.30 a.m. and lasts 3.5 hours (€39, 4.7 stars from 652 reviews), the other is the four-hour tour above (€40, 4.9 from 627). They show the Old Town and the English Garden by bike; the beer garden is lunch, not the point.
The beer garden does it for free
The tradition is old and simple. In a Munich beer garden there are two zones. At the bare wooden tables you queue at the counter for your drink, and you may bring your own food; at the tables with cloths a waiter serves you and you may not. So the rule of thumb is: no tablecloth, bring a picnic. A litre costs roughly €10 to €12, so budget about that per glass.
The garden at the Viktualienmarkt is the most central, with the beer of Munich’s six big breweries in rotation. The Hirschgarten is one of the largest in Europe, with about 8,000 seats, and the Chinesischer Turm in the English Garden and the Augustiner-Keller are the other two names you will hear again and again. All of this needs no ticket and no booking.
Which one to book
- One evening, dinner included, and you want the story: the €72 tour.
- Same idea, for less: the €49 walk.
- A louder night with other travellers: the €35 tour, if you are 18 or over.
- How beer is brewed: the €26.50 brewery tour, in German.
- Just the beer: skip the tour and go to a garden.
For the whole list see the beer and food tours, or the bike and bus tours for the ride with a beer-garden break.
Our pick for most travellers: the Beer and Food Tour with dinner and the Oktoberfest Museum.
