From Beer Gardens To Bierhalls To Bars & Clubs, A Complete Guide To Munich’s Nightlife
There’s more to do in Munich in September than go to Oktoberfest.
Although it’s hard to beat that good time, the city does have good nightlife within about a 20-minute walk of the Oktoberfest fairgrounds. Here’s a rundown of the best places to drink when you’re not downing big beers in the beerhalls.
Munich’s Best Beer Gardens
In evenings, for the Happy Hour beer or before, during or after dinner, the Augustiner-Keller – on on Arnulfstrape, a few blocks from the train station in the direction opposite of Marinplatz – is a rewarding, thirst-quenching choice. The first reaction upon entering is likely to be: “Now THIIS is a beer garden!” It has tables in a large garden, a gravel ground, a restaurant and even a cafeteria. And while the adjacent restaurant is beautiful, the food in the beergarten is quite sufficent and affordable. It’s the pefect place to have a beer and a meal, or to serve as a pre-party spot for pubclubbing later in the night.
Yet despite these two fine choices, locals have but one choice when it comes to Munich’s best beer garden – China Tower in English Garden. Pardon the irony of having a German beergarten in a place with a Chinese name in an English park, but it’s the best in town. This is a massive gathering spot with 7.000 seats, there is the signature Chinese Tower (Chinesischer Turm in German) in the middle and it’s one of the few biergartends with live Bavarian music, Students from the nearby University of Munich are among its frequent visitors. There’s also a nice restaurant on site.
Munich’s Best Bierhalls & Bars
The kaiser of all bierhalls is the famous Hofbrauhaus (in the Marinplatz). This multi-room, multi-level food and beer establishment is all Bavaria – huge liters of brew, oompha band, tourists and even a few locals. In short, it’s Oktoberfest when it’s not Oktoberfest. Locating it is not a snap – it’s thru the Bohmlerimtal walkway by phone booths and newspaper boxes.
So what’s it like? Well inside is wilder than outside and since every beer-drinking tourist, young and old, comes through at some point it’s a great place to start the night or as a second stop after spending time at one of the aforementioned biergartens. Prost!
The Hofbrauhaus starts to slow down by about 11 – gee, that’s when the band quits playing – but there’s some other good bars just around the corner. This is an excellent time to stroll to Killians Irish Pub/Ned Kelley’s Australian Bar. These fun side-by-side bars are for people who like to get down and dirty and just PARTY! Killians has a live band and Ned Kelly’s has a small, hot sweaty dance floor and Aussies slamming drinks (naturally). They are connected to one another and are casually crazy.
One of the most fun bars in Munich, a PubClub favorite, in fact, isSzymanskkis Bistro. It’s a restaruant-turned-bar that has a jammin’ and cool DJ, dance floor, small wait for cocktails, great music and a fun party atmosphere. No cover, no lines, just fine times. It’s on Bayerstrasse, directly across from the Hauptbahnhof taxi stand.
A walk down down Schwanthaler will be rewarded with a variety of bars –go past Mittererstrasse for a few of the better ones. This street is the scene of one of the World’s Largest Parades, Saturday morning on Oktoberfest opening weekend.
Munich’s Best Nightclubs
The big party place of Munich is a few miles east of town in an area known as Kunstpark Ost (near the Ostbahnhof train station). It is here the European clubbing comes to this town. The area is an entire series of bars and clubs with dining, drinking and dancing. Students like the laid-back Rum Machen (near the train station), The Backstage in Neuhausen has a biergarten,Alabamahalle is a pure dance and Laim has a series of bars and clubs.
CLUBS IN MARINPLATZ – The hot, Hollywood/Vegas/fast movers club is P1; (that’s a racing term meaning Position 1 on the track though this is located at Prinzregentenstrasse 1 which could also account for the name). It’s tough to get in, but there’s no cover. Guys may have a better chance of getting into Pacha, a nice, upscale club of locals which starts out as two clubs but becomes one as the night becomes morning. Sausalitos is a Mexican restaurant (in Munich, yeah!) that has Happy Hour margaritas from midnight to 5 a.m.
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