Journey: Once a joke, alcohol‑free beer is now no brew‑ha‑ha in Bavaria – Orange County Register

Bavaria and beer are as synonymous as Napa and wine. Yet the definition of what belongs in a stein or wine glass is beginning to wobble. Around the world, beer and wine are being pulled into the identical moderation wave — alcohol‑free wine alone is rising at greater than 20% a yr.

Alcohol‑free brews, as soon as shrugged off as “fake beer,” are muscling into the mainstream, powered by altering well being habits, improved style and a rising urge for food for stability. Across Bavaria, breweries, beer gardens and festivals are adjusting to a actuality that might have sounded virtually heretical not so way back.

“Nonalcohol beer was once met with upturned noses, but not anymore,” stated Stephan Stanglmeier, 25, the youngest brewmaster — or braumeister — at Klosterbrauerei Weltenburg, extensively thought-about the world’s oldest monastic brewery. “Purists still exist, but the fact is consumption of NA beer is getting more popular while sales of beer with alcohol is decreasing.”

Down in Munich, the Bavarian capital the place beer is virtually a birthright, the subsequent era of brewmasters isn’t arguing.

“The number of people who say they’ll never touch a nonalcohol beer is dwindling,” stated Annalena Ebner, 24, of Paulaner, certainly one of solely six breweries permitted to pour at Oktoberfest, the annual suds‑soaked celebration anticipated to attract round 7 million guests for its 191st version from Sept. 19 via Oct. 4.

In biergartens, servers carry trays the place alcohol‑free helles — a conventional pale lager — sits shoulder‑to‑shoulder with the traditional stuff, now not ordered with a whisper or judgment. At breweries all through Bavaria, stainless‑metal tanks hum with new NA recipes — each 0.0% and 0.5% ABV — constructed for taste quite than fermentation.

And even on the sprawling, hallowed grounds of Theresienwiese, house to the world-famous Oktoberfest and its smaller, springtime counterpart, Munchner Fruhlingsfest, alcohol-free beer is now not thought-about verboten. One proof level is it’s now accessible on faucet. For one other, simply ask any of the smiling stein-cradling kellnerinnen inside the two,500-seat Hippodrom tent.

“About one in eight orders a Hippo’s Weissbier Alkoholfrei,” stated a bustling Johanna as she delivered a stack of mass — the enduring liter-sized glassware constructed for oompah‑fueled toasting — to a raucous desk on the not too long ago concluded Munich Spring Festival, typically known as “Oktoberfest’s Little Sister.” (Next yr’s Fruhlingsfest is scheduled for April 16-May 9.)

Stepping out of the Hippodrom, previous the Alpenrausch enjoyable home, Jason Baughman‑Oprica, a Washington, D.C.-based flight attendant, is in lederhosen on the outside Weissbiergarten. The Paulaner in entrance of him is the true factor, a perk of an in a single day layover, however he nonetheless sees the upside of alcohol‑free brews, praising the prospect to “drink without going overboard.”

“NA beer has definitely become more commonplace and acceptable, and not just at festivals,” he stated. “Even on our flights to Germany, I’d say we get a couple passengers asking for it — Americans and Germans. We don’t have an NA beer on the cart now, but we probably should.”

Beyond Munich’s spring and fall festivals, a broader image emerges on a Bavarian suds safari that winds via brewery cities, beer halls and village squares the place alcohol‑free choices are gaining traction.

In northern Bavaria sits Bamberg, a captivating place with a beer story that dates to a medieval cleric who ordered townsfolk be given a free brew on the day of his loss of life. Ulrich of Bamberg’s close to‑millennium legacy helped form a metropolis that right this moment pours greater than 50 types from 13 breweries.

Kaiserdom and Klosterbrau stand out for alcohol‑free alternatives: Kaiserdom provides full‑bodied helles and wheat beers plus a weissbier‑grapefruit radler, whereas Klosterbrau, the town’s oldest brewery, based in 1533, produces three 0.0s, together with a rauchbier with a tall tan head and a lightweight, gently malty sip. The darkish smoked model pairs neatly with schaufele, the pork‑shoulder specialty served at Klosterbrau’s restaurant within the outdated city.

For modern eating, Henrii delivers an eclectic menu and dramatic riverfront views of the Altes Rathaus. The Bavarian burger with cranberry mayo goes effectively with an alcohol‑free Gutmann hefeweizen.

Just off Bamberg’s full of life, strollable core is Hotel Villa Geyersworth, a 4‑star, 40‑key property mixing trendy consolation with quiet outdated‑city magnificence and effectively‑stored gardens.

On the subsequent leg of our buzz‑free Bavaria tour, we head south on the autobahn to a metropolis identified extra for its World War II historical past than its beer tradition. Nuremberg is the place Adolf Hitler’s rallies fueled the Third Reich and the place a postwar tribunal later confronted Nazi leaders over wartime atrocities. Today, the newly renovated Documentation Center on the Rally Grounds and Courtroom 600 stand as two of the town’s most sobering sights, a weight that makes the quiet pleasure of a beer afterward really feel grounding.

Two really helpful spots, each serving Franconian fare and alcohol‑free beer, are Gutmann am Dutzendteich, a lakeside biergarten close to the previous Rally Grounds, and, throughout city, Schanzenbrau Schankwirtschaft, the beer backyard of a household‑owned brewery.

Southbound on the autobahn, simply shy of the midway level to Munich, a forty five‑minute detour east results in Weltenburger Klosterbrauerei, brewing since 1050. Set throughout the Benedictine Abbey of Weltenburg, which sits simply above a bend within the Danube River, the grounds embody a beer backyard that’s breathtakingly stunning however pours solely one of many brewery’s three alcohol‑free varieties. While most company benefit from the signature Barock Dunkel, these driving or heading out on a hike might go for the NA helles, labeled merely “hell.” The brewery, one of many few in Bavaria providing public excursions, additionally makes an alcohol‑free wheat beer, and in May launched an NA radler with a 50/50 lemonade mix.

Back in Munich, the beer story widens past the competition tents and zeroes in on a spot the place even nondrinkers take into account their go to a pilgrimage.

“Welcome to Hofbrauhaus, the cradle of Bavarian restaurant culture,” Tobias Ranzinger greeted a first-time visitor to what many take into account Munich’s year-round Oktoberfest.

The venerable venue’s spokesman represents a must-see in part of the town laden with them. In the guts of the Altstadt, a brief stroll from Marienplatz, one other of Munich’s must-sees, Hofbrauhaus is a swirl of oompah music, clinking liters and vacationers discovering that Bavarian exuberance doesn’t require a competition. Though it’s the birthplace of Bavarian beer lore, nobody’s getting tossed out for ordering a stein of NA beer.

“When you come here and order an alcohol-free beer, it’s totally fine,” Ranzinger stated. “You’d be surprised how many regular guests first order a normal beer, follow it with an alkoholfrei Hofbrau Weisse, then finish with another regular.”

That mixture of orders says extra concerning the tradition of the place than the beer itself, in accordance with Ranzinger.

“The misconception is that you come to a beer hall to get drunk. You don’t,” he stated. “A beer or two is relaxing and pairs well with our heavier dishes — the pork knuckle, for instance — but the goal is to enjoy a beer hall experience, to reach gemutlichkeit, that German sense of feeling comfortable.”

Gemutlichkeit is effectively earned on the Platzl Hotel, which sits in the identical sq. as Hofbrauhaus. The 167‑room property, sister to the boutiquey Marias Platzl throughout the Isar, provides trendy rooms over its personal Bavarian tavern, the place the kitchen seems a few of the greatest meals on the town and pours a number of NA beers. None of them come from Ayinger, the lodge’s featured brewery, which reportedly doesn’t make one. The sq., generally known as the Platzl, additionally hosts a watering gap with a really totally different beat: the family-friendly Hard Rock Café München, whose bar pours NA Clausthaler from Frankfurt and Erdinger from Erding.

Beyond the outdated‑city staples, the 24-year-old Hard Rock not included, Munich’s beer world is shifting in surprising methods.

Giesinger, based in 2006, has turn into the uncommon Munich newcomer to make actual noise in a metropolis dominated by centuries‑outdated beer dynasties. After shifting into the nonalcohol market in 2023 and rolling out a radler in 2025, Bavaria’s most trendy brewery is now pushing for an excellent greater milestone: changing into the seventh Munich brauhaus allowed to pour at Oktoberfest, a slot historically reserved for the town’s historic “Big Six” and ruled by the Reinheitsgebot, Bavaria’s famed beer‑purity legislation. The new child on the town doesn’t shy from speaking industrial politics throughout brewery excursions supplied a number of instances every week to the general public.

For all of the momentum behind nonalcoholic beer, Bavaria’s capital isn’t shedding its traditions anytime quickly. At Munich Airport, Airbrau, the world’s first airport brewery, has been brewing since 1999 and added its first alkoholfrei possibility, Fliegerquell Alkoholfrei, simply final yr. Manager Rene Jacobsen stated the nonalcohol section is now the one a part of Germany’s beer market that’s rising, pushed by well being‑minded youthful drinkers, but Bavaria’s consuming tradition stays unmistakably intact.

Beer remains to be stitched into every day life, from a morning weissbier with weisswurst to the six‑mass marathons that depart guests sleeping on the competition’s grassy hill. And for a lot of locals, Jacobsen famous, slipping in for a single drink — generally even a non‑alcoholic one — is solely sufficient to really feel a part of all of it.

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