Brewing city
Munich
Bavarian brewing capital, origin of Helles, Dunkel and Märzen, with carbonate-rich water that suits darker malt.
In Germany.
Why it matters to beer
Munich water is high in bicarbonate, which historically favoured darker beer — Munich Dunkel long preceded Munich Helles. Helles was developed only in 1894, as a direct competitive response to the pale Bohemian lagers taking market share.
Styles from here
- Munich Helles
Bavaria’s everyday pale lager: soft, bready and malt-forward, with just enough hop to balance and nothing to distract.
- Festbier
The golden, stronger lager actually served at modern Oktoberfest — malt-forward and smooth, but pale rather than amber.
- Märzen
A rich amber lager brewed in March for autumn drinking, with deep toasty malt and a clean, firm finish.
- Munich Dunkel
Deep brown Bavarian lager led by rich Munich malt — bready and gently chocolatey, without real roast bitterness.
- Doppelbock
Intensely malty strong lager, dense with bread crust, caramel and dark fruit, and remarkably clean for its strength.
Beers brewed here
- Augustiner Edelstoff
A stronger, fuller Munich pale lager in the export tradition, and the beer that shows what the extra gravity is for.
- Augustiner Helles
The Munich Helles most often treated as the benchmark: soft, bready, faintly sweet, and almost impossible to fault.
- Hofbräu Original
The Helles of the Bavarian state brewery, and one of the six beers served at Oktoberfest.
- Paulaner Hefe-Weißbier Naturtrüb
One of the two Bavarian wheat beers a reader outside Germany is most likely to be able to buy, and the more banana-forward of them.
- Paulaner Salvator
The original doppelbock, descended from the strong beer brewed by Paulaner friars for the Lenten fast.
- Paulaner Weißbier Alkoholfrei
The alcohol-free version of the brewery’s wheat beer, and an example of the style that de-alcoholises best.
- Spaten Münchner Hell
From the brewery that produced the first Munich Helles in 1894, in response to Bohemian pale lager taking its market.
- Spaten Oktoberfestbier
One of the six beers served at the Munich Oktoberfest, and an example of how the festival beer shifted from amber Märzen to pale Festbier.
Breweries
The water
Moderately hard and notably alkaline, with high bicarbonate that historically favoured darker malt over pale.
Water is shown here as a property of the place rather than as the reason its beer turned out the way it did. The correlation between a city’s water and its style is real; the causal story is more contingent than it is usually told, and BeerHQ treats it as contested. See Munich water.
Elsewhere in the country
Bavaria · Franconia · Cologne · Düsseldorf · Berlin · Dortmund · Hallertau
Last reviewed 2026-08-15.