From the Hofbräuhaus to Obliteration

I've been looking back through the blog to try and discern what's missing from the posts. Then it struck me: not enough Napalm Death.

So I'm going to try pairing grindcore and New England pale ale.
By way of the transport museum and Munich's most famous beer hall.
Let's start at a gentle pace...

I strolled south from the main station under blue skies that defied the rainy weather forecast, making my way to the Deutsches Museum Verkehrszentrum.
This is housed in 1920's exhibition halls on the edge of the Bavaria Park, three large halls containing all manner of motor vehicles from all ages: trams, trains, bikes, skis, and F1 cars.

I thought it was great.
I even put my coat and bag in a locker and I never usually commit myself to staying in any museum long enough to need to take my coat off.

Ironically, viewing all those modes of transport and old Munich trams in the museum, I was mostly relegated to travelling on my own two feet throughout the rest of the day, Munich's transport network brought to a standstill by a strike.  And I thought that only happened in London.
My route took me across the expanse of the Theresienwiese (nope, still no interest in visiting the Oktoberfest).

Then into the centre via pleasant leafy suburbs, through the Sendlinger Tor, then onward to the beer hall that I said I wasn't going to bother going to this time.
A bit like going to Leeds and not visiting Whitelocks, or skipping a pint of Bass in the Bell in Bath, you kind of need to pop your head in to the Hofbrauhas. 

Hofbräuhaus München (Platzl 9, 80331 München)
It's perpetually busy, attracting a vast number of tourists although that doesn't seem to put of a strong local following too, numbers swelled by Bayern supporters ahead of a cup tie with RB Leipzig.
The cavernous main drinking hall with painted ceilings was awash with noise and all tables occupied early in the afternoon, although I suspect there were plenty of spots to squeeze in if you were determined enough.

Live music...no, that's not Napalm Death, not yet...

The Hofbräuhaus am Platzl was originally built adjacent to the brewery in 1589 although it didn't open to the general public until 1828.  It has a dark bit of history, famous as the venue where the National Socialists held their inaugural meeting and used for subsequent speeches.

I perched myself on a high table about as far away as you could get from the action in the main hall and perused the beer choices...

The core beers are Hofbräu Original, Dunkle, Weiss from a bottle, and a seasonal on offer provided you're here at the right time.  Beware, the seasonal only comes in a 1-litre measure, as is the Bavarian norm.  €5.40 gets you the more sensible 0.5l measure of the pale or dunkle. The Original for me - "Bier mit charakter" according to the menu.

For those whom the hecticness of the beer hall is too much, Ayinger's central Munich tap is located almost directly across the road and is a lot more relaxed.

Ayinger am Platzl (Platzl 1A, 80331 München)
Their beer is brewed in a village to the southeast of the city, easily accessible on the S-Bahn if you want to sample it at source.  I grabbed a stool on the end of the bar and ordered the Kellerbier in the absence of a menu.  Nice glass...

I read somewhere that many locals stick with the big city brews and don't rate Ayinger, yet I thought the kellerbier was excellent and so easily drinkable.

Here's your male and female signage on the basement WCs.  Luckily my hair was quite dishevelled this day and I looked just like the chap on the gents (although I'd left my clay pipe at home), so no confusion this time. 

 

Departing from Ayinger, I strolled back through the city centre, dropped my backpack off at my hotel near the station and set out in the early evening dusk and on-set of drizzle for some more modern Munich beer.
Ah...they've set up a chair especially for me where I'll be out the way and won't bother anyone...

Higgins Ale Works (Karlstraße 122, 80335 München)
This fooled me a bit - I had the image of a sprawling industrial unit based on the 'Ale Works' moniker, yet it turned out to be every bit the micro pub.
Great music  - LCD Soundsystem, New Order, Talking Heads, Violent Femmes 'Gone Daddy Gone'.
Six of their own beers on offer, although all on the pale side.  I picked the New Zealand pilsner 'Tikier Tour', brewed in collaboration with Ingolstadt's Yankee & Kraut.  Then moved on to the 'Secret Idaho Pale Ale', a 5.7% hazy concoction brewed with Vic Secret and Idaho 7 hops.

The bar consisted just four tables, plus stools at the counter and stools along a ledge at the front window. Despite my picture making it look like a typical PropUptheBar empty pub visit, it filled up nicely during the time I was there.

Moving on, I walked through the drizzle to Hackerbrucke station, the local trains still running despite the strike providing an alternative to a longish dull wet walk.
I was chuffed to jump straight on a train - less chuffed that it sat there and didn't go anywhere thanks to an 'incident'.

Regrettably, 15-minutes sat on an S-Bahn train going nowhere led to a late arrival and missing a good chunk of Polish stoner metal band Dopelord's set.  Shame...what I heard of them sounded pretty good and they had ace t-shirts that I couldn't justify buying after only catching 2-songs.

Next up - all the way from exotic Leamington Spa - were 80's punk band The Varukers.

A anarcho crusty punk band who formed in 1979 and have impressively kept going over the years with Anthony "Rat" Martin on vocals since the very beginning.

Veteran New Jersey trio Whiplash provided some pedal-to-the-floor thrash metal...

Backstage Werk was a cracking venue, part of a larger cultural centre with the evening's football playing on a big screen in another hall, a club venue, and more spaces to lounge about in what looked like converted shipping containers.  Beer in the venue was a very reasonable €4.50 - a bottle of Augustiner Dunkel for me.

Headliners Napalm Death took to the stage just gone 9:30...

Details of the setlist?
No idea...except that everything was fast, loud and very noisy.
Back in Oxford, I played Mrs PropUptheBar my video of Napalm Death kicking into 'Scum', the crowd bouncing off one another in front of the stage.  Strangely enough, she didn't say she wished she'd been there.
I like a bit of noise every now and again - and four noisy bands of various persuasions made this good value for money - although I appreciate that many would much prefer to spend the evening with the dulcet brass tones of the Hofbräuhaus band as their musical accompaniment.

Craft Beer in Munich

February 2026.
Back in Germany with a couple of gig tickets, football tickets, a few sightseeing ideas, and a whole lotta beer which needs to be drunk.

So, without further ado, let's start exploring the Bavarian capital, somewhere I haven't been for a fair few years. 
The central outdoor market seemed as good a place as any to start.  BBC weather had promised me that Munich was replicating the UK's early 2026 rainfall every day forecast, so I figured I'd make the most of the mild and dry conditions on my arrival and sample some helles al-fresco.

Biergarten Viktualienmarkt (Viktualienmarkt 9, 80331 München)
Beer comes from the kiosk where half litre's of pale lager are dispensed at the counter to the left for you to scoop up, before handing your €5.50 to the chap at the counter to the right.  No need for the barrier or any queue on a weekday February afternoon, when there was just enough custom to ensure your beer hadn't been sitting there for too long. 

 

The Viktualienmarkt beer garden rotates through the big Munich brewers every couple of weeks, with barrels of Hacker Pschorr being tapped on this occasion. 
The helles does the job without being especially exciting - a sweet bready golden lager that's lightly carbonated and easy to drink.

Being as it was fairly bright and not raining, I paid my €5 to clamber up the steps of the 91m-high church tower of St Peter's.
(Perfect blue sky the next day, but how was I to know...)

That bit of exercise almost certainly offset the calories of the beer, making it quite acceptable to waste no time in sampling the wares of another of the Munich 'Big Six' breweries.

Augustiner Stammhaus (Neuhauser Str. 27, 80331 München)
On a busy central shopping street, this was the original site of the Augustiner brewery and adjacent beer hall.  It was completely rebuilt between 1896 and 1897 by local architect Emanuel von Seidl to incorporate a restaurant for the newly prosperous folk of the city along with several function rooms and a courtyard garden.
I may only have explored a fraction of the place, but it's a super-impressive cavernous venue: vaulted ceilings, dark wood panels midway up the walls, big tables, and steady buzz of conversation with most tables occupied even if it was far from as busy as it often gets.

I grabbed a stool at one of the huge barrels close to the bar, where my view looked like this...

Then ordered myself the Augustina 'Weissbier', a 5.4% brew which smells of yeast and banana when you get your nose into that frothy head, then tastes of malty bread, citrus and orange peel once you get on with drinking it.

Mmmm...
One great beer from the brewery that many Munich folk will argue is the city's best.
I made a call to the basement WCs which have that annoying feature of an attendant expectant of your euro coins, although - to be fair - they were pristine facilities. 
Then took a quick blurry snap of the front room and the Schäfflerwagenkranz, the ceiling light featuring coopers dancing to ward off the plague...

Then I was on the move, heading towards  one of the city's modern brew pubs...

Schiller Bräu (Schillerstraße 23, 80336 München)
This was a short walk from the haupbahnhof, along a bustling street.  It was founded in 2017 and is shiny and modern inside, featuring brewing coppers on a raised platform in the front window, sleek and smart dining tables on two floors beyond the bar.
They offered three house brews in traditional Munich styles (light or dark lager and wheat beer) plus seasonal bocks and festbiers if you're here at the right time.
I tend to favour a dunkel, so that's what I ordered...not very dark though, is it?

This was at the lighter end of the dunkel colour spectrum - best bitter-looking - with others being stouty black and a fair few disguised completely by being served in ceramic mugs.
Apologies to Schiller for not staying and trying all the beers, but I had other places to visit.

Leaving Schiller, I caught the U1 underground line to Kolumbusplatz, then made the 5-minute walk up Falkenstraße to another modern brew pub.

BrewsLi - Der Biermacher (Taubenstraße 2, 81541 München)
BrewsLi (good name!) is a cool little craft brewpub in a nice neighbourhood.  It's an L-shaped place, with shiny brewing equipment visible just inside the door, sofas and casual seating in the front, regular tables towards the back.  A young chap named Benjamin Saller is the owner and brewer, setting up the 250l brew kit and opening the bar slap bang in the middle of lock down 2020.

The beers are all displayed on skate boards hung above the bar counter - or on an easier to manage piece of paper if you sit at a table.  Eleven in total, including an alcohol-free offering, trad styles, tweaks on trad styles, IPAs and a sour ('Hoppy McTartface').
Prices ranged from €3.90 for 0.3l of the helles to €8.20 for a half litre of the 7% west coast IPA.

I stuck dark with a 5.9% 'Night Draft' 'light' porter...

Brews Li was quiet when I arrived, although a reasonable Tuesday after-work crowd steadily rolled in whilst I was there.  Music was 90% dubious modern hip-hop with Galliano providing a slight jazzy up-turn and Nena's '99 Red Balloons' an unexpected curveball.
Being initially the only person sat at the bar enabled a nice chat with the staff about football and beer.

The porter was followed with a 'DH Helles' 5.4%, a craft twist on the style, dry-hopped with citrussy Krush hops.  Then the 'Top Notch' 5.4% session IPA.

A thumbs-up to Brews Li then, which deserves a place on anyone's Munich beer itinerary.
But I had to move on, with my eye on a little more craft beer to finish my first day in the city.
I hopped aboard a bus that randomly terminated midway through its route, the jumped on this tram...

Tap House (Rosenheimer Str. 108, 81669 München)
Wow!
This was one of the first craft bars to trample into Munich's trad drinking reinheitsgebot territory and serve up all sorts of modern murk.  They do it rather well.
A long bar counter stretches the length of the room to your left when you step through the door.  An arched ceiling gives this a cellar-like feel, painted a murky yellow (is it just UK pubs that discovered olive paint?)

The tap list offered up a hefty choice of 40 beers, the first 18 of which came from Bavarian brewery Camba (from Seeon-Seebruck), owners of the Tap House.
There was too much choice.  Trying everything I'd like would have cost me a pretty penny with the stronger beers perilously close to the €9.00 mark.  And I probably wouldn't have been able to walk in a straight line or find my way back to the hotel either.
Imperial stout from Munich Brew Mafia, limited edition NEIPA from Yankee & Kraut, a Jager Weiss wheat beer...Murphy's Irish stout (? perhaps I'll skip that one)...what to pick?

I opted for Camba's own limited-edition 8.5% collab: 'Zappenduster Imperial Oatmeal Stout'.

 

Then stuck around for the pinsa (tarte flambée) and a murky strong IPA from Frau Gruber.
After which it was time to call it a night.
Turns out you that 8.5% imperial stout is an absolute destroyer when you've been up since 3am in the morning.

Beaconsfield Beckons

The Microsoft news feed on my work PC seems confident that I want to read stories about George R.R. Martin's never-happening next Game of Thrones book, Man City's unlikely-to-ever-happen 115 fines, Wetherspoon's latest pub openings and closings, and behind-the-scenes insights into the Traitors. 
They haven't really got me sussed yet, but I do like keeping up to date with Spoons.

Which is how I came to pick Beaconsfield as a wintery Saturday afternoon destination, providing me the chance to visit the newly opened Chiltern.

The Chiltern (12 Station Road, Beaconsfield, HP9 1QR)
And wow!  It was doing a roaring trade - the new kid on the block bringing out the locals in force.
At first glance the building doesn't look especially old or cinema-like. Yet it opened in 1927, designed by Leathart and Granger of London in an unconventional style for a picture house.  In 1989 the credits for Nick Nolte crime thriller 'The Three Fugitives' rolled and the popcorn detritus was swept up for the final time when The Chiltern closed.  In the interim it's been a pizza restaurant, but now finds itself as one of the newest Spoons outlets.

In a Beaconsfield bid to be released from Bucks and incorporated into the capital, The Chiltern was taking part in the Wetherspoon London Beer Festival.  Presenting me with too much choice at the bar, with a cracking range of styles represented over half-a-dozen guest ale hand pulls.  The Wimbledon 'Hounds of Helles' drew me in with the dramatic pump clip and my fondness for a dunkel.  Although it was a bit light-bodied and not as good as I'd hoped.

I returned to the bar for a Mad Squirrel 'Amberillo', a super beer in great condition.  Keep this up and I'll expect to see The Chiltern in the GBG before too long.
The 'bustling' heart of the pub is the high-roofed auditorium where the bar is, whilst there are quieter seating areas in a front section and around the entryway.  
Toilets are, inevitably, a climb up the stairs, with a glass-walled passageway to them providing the birds-eye view of proceedings.

Time for a quick shot of the carpet before departing...

Then onward into the chill afternoon, my next destination no more than a couple of minutes around the corner...

The Taps Beaconsfield (5-7 Gregories Road, Beaconsfield, HP9 1HG)
This is a shop conversion, turned into a modern bar which is too smart and large to be called a micro.  It's not going to please anyone looking for a traditional pub, but it instantly gets my thumbs-up for Violent Femmes 'Blister in the Sun' playing on my arrival.

Here's the beer list...

Not a bad selection. No bargains to be had, though.

I ordered a half of the Otherworld 'Lycan' pale ale, having had a superb stout from the Dalkeith brewery in Oxford's The Grapes a couple of days earlier.
And a half of the local cask - Stardust 'Roses'.

Two decent beers.
Football chat from the three gents on the next table who turned out to be Hadley FC's Ultras (Beaconsfield Town 4 Hadley 1, hmmm...perhaps you should stayed in the pub).
And bespoke beer mats...what else can you ask for?

Moving on from the Taps, it was a three-quarter of a mile walk south from the station and shops to 'old' Beaconsfield.
Which was quite charming...

By the roundabout where the A40 and the road to the station meet, you've got the old Royal Saracen's Head on one side and the untraditionally named Vinny and Ted on the other.
There are a couple more pubs in this part of town, but lots of 'No Cask Ale' notes on the CAMRA website.

Vinny and Ted (10-12 The Broadway, Beaconsfield, HP9 1ND)
The entrance porch suggests an old pub, although I can find no record of what this used to be before becoming the second Vinny and Ted (the first being nearby in Chalfont St Peter).
It's a bright modern place within. Stylish lighting. Shiny polished wooden floors. Blankets to drape over yourself if you opt to sit outside.

Professional bloggers would ask the bar staff to pose for a picture.  I give you the bar staff's back as my Verdant murk is being expertly dispensed...

In my defence, I snapped the pic to remind myself what beers were on offer.
A really decent selection from the likes of Anspach & Hobday, Wiper & True, and Glasshouse.  There were also two hand pumps offering cask from Deya ('Steady Rolling Man') or Swannay ('Chance Your Arm').

I was foolish, spending £7.50 on a half of Verdant's 'Putty 2026', one of those concoctions which they make a new version of each year, rave about the latest variety, and charge an arm and a leg for it.  Very nice, mind you.

I'd left myself a hefty walk if I wanted to continue local explorations.  Back up past 'Spoons, past the station, and straight up the road for another mile to reach Knotty Green.
I was so chuffed to make it without any rain falling from the gathering grey clouds that I didn't notice the very neat topiary in the front garden.

The Lion of Beaconsfield (Penn Road, Knotty Green, HP9 2TN)
The oversized houses lining Penn Road with their security gates should really have given a clue that the residents of Knotty Green wouldn't be clamouring for a down-to-earth trad boozer.  Maybe this was just that at one point, but in its latest incarnation, The Lion is very much the smart and respectable dining pub.

It's unusual to get this far into Buckingham pub explorations and not have encountered ale from Marlow's Rebellion Brewery.

I boldly took a bang average pint of 'Overthrow' to the best seat in the house: the table next to the fireplace, where I disregarded the 'reserved' sign.  Actually, I think every table had a reserved sign - it was that kind of place.

 

Not a bad fireplace, I thought. But wait 'til you see the next one!

I quaffed the second half of my beer rather too quickly, keen to move on.  I was just down the road from the self-proclaimed oldest pub in England, the historic inn that will most likely be the reason any pub afficionado has hopped off the train at Beaconsfield station.

The Royal Standard of England (Forty Green Road, Forty Green, HP9 1XT)
It was autumn 2020 when I last visited, back in the time of table-service and getting told off it you wandered around too much trying to find the room where they filmed Hot Fuzz or Midsomer Murders.
To be honest, it's a tourist attraction - enormous car park (just me getting stuck in the mud on that footpath through the field of horses then...) - folks not quite knowing what to do at the bar - no-one blinking an eyelid at the odd chap taking pictures...it's almost expected here.

Two cask ales from the Chiltern Brewery, two from Rebellion, one mysterious house bitter.
All at premium prices.
I picked the Rebellion 'Roasted Nuts', served in a heavy, pub-branded, handled glass which seemed to make it last longer.

 

There are so many nooks and crannies and cosy rooms within this pub - settles and wooden benches galore, antlers and shields hung from wall throughout, and enough character to make me accept the higher-end pint prices after all.
I plonked myself in the rear banquet room...

Now that's what I call a fireplace!

Although vegetarians may not be so keen on the slabs of meat in the fridge next to it.

Finishing my pint, I raced back over the muddy footpath under a dusky sky, then through the leafy Beaconsfield suburbs, only to reach the station approach road and see the Oxford train departing.
Bugger. Forty-five minutes.  A patient wait on the platform? Back to Spoon's for more festival beers? Somewhere new?
The new 'tick' won...

The Beech House (17 Penn Road, Beaconsfield, HP9 2PN)
I'd walked past the Beech House earlier on my trek to the Lion, although it hadn't jumped out at me and got me hoping I'd have to time to spare before a train.
It's a large single-storey modern pub which has been open since 2013.  Still described as 'newly open' on CAMRA's website description, suggesting Beaconsfield really doesn't get much love from the local branch.

Huge dining room to the right, spacious drinking areas to the left.  A fair crowd in early on a Saturday evening, although I wonder how many they've lost to Spoons?
The sole hand pump served a below par Fullers 'London Pride'.

I not only kept one of the Boothe party seats warm before 18:00 but also covered half their reserved sign in London Pride due a wobbly table.  The bits of rubbish aren't mine though...I take my litter away with me.

And with that, it was time to catch a train.
Regrettably, I don't think I'm quite committed enough to be heading to Alicante to tick off the most recent of new J.D.Wetherspoon openings.