Best beer spots in Dresden and Munich

Munich has a few new places, specially for craft beer.
Tap house, near the ostbahnhof is pretty good. Around 40 beers on tap plus bottles.
Giesing brauery is pretty good, with good food and good beer, a mix of craft and German beers.
For stores, biervana has good selection of craft beer and getranke oases has very good selection of Bavarian beer. The first in schawving, the later in maxvorstad, near the TUM main campus.
Crew republic is a craft brewery in Munich but not sure they have a taproom, you find their beers in some places. Will try to think of a few other places.

 

http://www.beerdrinkersguide.com
http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/germany.htm

 

For Dresden the Craft Beer Store is decent enough and is in a pretty cool neighborhood otherwise. For more traditional stuff Brauhaus Watzke can be a nice place to sit outside and enjoy some beer (though if you are going soon I guess that won't be an option). The inside is pretty neat too, and the food is decent (especially the Zwiebelschmalz - om nom nom). The beer is nothing to write home about but solid and the food and atmosphere can make it worth a trip.

There was somewhere in Dresden that I got an excellent Schwarzbier from but I cannot for the life of me remember the name (funny how that happens when you drink) - it was at somewhere sort of similar feeling to Watzke as a I recall. Maybe somebody else has an idea?

 

Well, my wife tells me that the Schwarzbier was at Watzke as well, so I guess there is some beer to write home about there - which I should have done, so I'd have a way to remember. I believe it's a seasonal though.

 

Munich is essentially one giant beer spot if you want it to be. The Beer Drinker's Guide to Munich should cover most of your bases, especially if you've been before.
For an atypical place, I'll throw out Forschungsbrauerei. My other faves (Andechs, Weihenstephan, Aying, the HBH, Andechser Am Dom, etc.) are all well known.

 

We're expecting a complete report on the trip!

 

Obvious Munich one, but still a goody and no stag/hens allowed

http://www.augustinerkeller.de/beer-garden/?L=1

 

I don't know, that "'70s Party" looks like it could be just as bad.

 

Thnx for the update. .. Prosit

 

My favorite beer and location in and around Munich was Andechs Monastery, an S5 train ride to Heershing and a taxi ride up the hill, although they did have a hotel near the train station, IIRC. Amazing malt character and wonderful ambiance, at least while we were there last.

 

Augustiner Pils is probably the most under-appreciated beer in all of Munich. It's fantastic, but if you ever try to order one you'll get nothing but people trying to talk you out of it . I've heard stories where people (Bill Eye being one) would order it at Grossgastatte or Am Dom and the staff would refuse to let them order it.

 

It's par for the course at most places. Usually they push the lagerbier hell, but sometimes they'll suggest the Edelstoff or even the dunkel. Augustiner is their pride and joy and it (along with HB) is sometimes seen as the flagship of Bavarian brewing. I guess they don't want visitors to end up ordering a pils in the capital of helles country.
It's too bad, though - that pils is one of the best in the state. I usually explain that I've had gallons of the helles and that I'm looking to try their other offerings. That tends to work even if they think it's odd that I'd want a change-up.

 

On my first trip to Munich, back in the late '80s, I drank a heckuva lot of Pils, there was no turning away an order. Of course, I can remember the look and feel, even the table setting, of my first visit to Augustiner, but I sure can't remember what I drank. Had a couple .5 liters and I'd bet it was the Hell and Dunkel, but I remember a lot of Pilsner and that infernal "wait" at other stops.

 

Is there a good beer guide from someone who actually like Munich/Bavarian beers in general?

I feel like this guide just has a gloomy outlook on everything, or is that really the current state of beer in the city?

EDIT: oh dear, perhaps I had not realized the state of German beer. Reading other things on this website, I really had no idea what was actually going on. This is really depressing.

 

Please note, the guide is kind of outdated. Esp. in terms of bigger german cities outside of bavaria- Hamburg and Berlin for instance are becoming quite the beer cities now (aigan), with lots of new "craft" breweries, beer festivals and the like. Dresden for instance is also improving- they have a few outlets,craft beer bottle shops etc now.

As for munich- well...... I honestly love traditional munich beer. That being said, right now there are a few younger brewers making craft (Crew republic, TIllmanns,Giesinger...), and several good pubs to drink non traditional offerings in, the most famous would be the camba bavaria tap house http://www.tap-house.de/en/

I have to add: In its own way, I find the fact that youll find US style IPAs now anywhere in germany, now matter if you are in Hamburg, Munich or Cologne, somehow even more depressing than the state of german brewing before that........

 

I had a feeling it was outdated for a few reasons. It mentions Michael Jackson recently speaking to a group of brewers, for one. Another, many of the locations look quite nice now and don't match up with his experiences at all ( I used Google earth/maps to check them out personally via panoramas and stuff).

I honestly have ZERO interest in any American styles brewed in Germany. That's not what I'd go for. My favorite beers to drink are weizen beers of all kinds, and rich lagers. What is German "craft" beer? Is it higher quality beers of those styles? Recreations of long now dead historical styles? I'm open to suggestions of places to go in Bavaria/Franconia that do those things, if that is what German craft is about. I'm planning on going summer of 2017.

EDIT: Giesinger looks like a good place to me!

Thanks for your reply