Oktoberfest: History, Traditions, and the Six Munich Breweries
Oktoberfest is the most attended beer festival on the planet and one of the most misunderstood. The image exported globally — plastic cups, generic amber lager, people in rented lederhosen — is a distorted reflection of what happens on the Theresienwiese in Munich from mid-September to the first Sunday of October each year. The actual festival involves enormous tents run by Munich landlords, six specific Munich breweries that have supplied the event for generations, and a specific style of festive lager that is different from what most of the world pours under the "Oktoberfest" label.
The Origins: A Royal Wedding
The festival's origin is precisely documented. On October 12, 1810, Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria married Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen on the fields outside Munich's city gates, subsequently named the Theresienwiese (Therese's meadow) in her honor. The public was invited to celebrate, and the festivities closed with a horse race on October 17. The race was popular enough to be repeated the following year, when an agricultural show was added, and the festival gradually expanded in duration and commercial scope.
For most of the nineteenth century, beer was sold from small stands that multiplied year by year. In 1896 those stands gave way to the first large beer tents and halls, set up by enterprising landlords with the backing of the breweries. By the turn of the twentieth century the event had the basic structure it maintains today: large brewery-owned tents, carnival attractions on the periphery, and a focus on beer consumption by a combination of locals and visitors from across Bavaria, Germany, and increasingly the world.
The start was moved forward into September in 1872 to take advantage of longer, warmer days. Today the festival opens on the Saturday after September 15 and runs through the first Sunday of October (extended to October 3, German Unity Day, when that falls later), so only its closing days fall in the month that gave it its name.
The Six Permitted Breweries
One of the most distinctive features of Oktoberfest is the restriction on which breweries may operate major tents on the Wiesn. Only beer brewed within Munich's city limits may be served, and in practice that limits the big tents to six historic Munich breweries. Those six (organized as the Verein Münchner Brauereien) also hold the collective trademark "Oktoberfest-Bier" and the protected geographical indication "Münchner Bier". The rule has its critics: smaller Munich brewers such as Giesinger Bräu have campaigned to be let in.
Augustiner-Bräu, founded in 1328 and the oldest of the six, is the festival's most beloved tent among Müncheners themselves. Augustiner is the only one of the six still serving its Oktoberfest beer (a pale Oktoberfestbier, not a Märzen) from 200-litre wooden barrels called Hirschen rather than steel tanks, a distinction that earns genuine reverence among those who seek it out. Fans say the wood-tapped beer, slightly less carbonated, drinks softer.
Paulaner, established by the Paulaner friars in 1634, runs one of the festival's largest tents. Its Oktoberfest beer is a fresh, golden festbier brewed specifically for the festival. Spaten-Franziskaner (dating to 1397, now part of AB InBev) produces the Ur-Märzen whose amber style served as the prototype for the festival's beer for most of its history. Hofbräu — the state brewery established by Duke Wilhelm V in 1589 — operates the Hofbräu tent, which is the most international in character and has the least Bavarian-feeling atmosphere.
Hacker-Pschorr (the product of a 1972 merger, tracing origins to a brewery founded in 1417) and Löwenbräu (established 1383) complete the six. Hacker-Pschorr's tent, nicknamed "Himmel der Bayern" (Bavarian heaven), is known for its painted sky ceiling; Löwenbräu's tent is the one with the giant lion at the entrance, which roars "Löööwenbräu" at regular intervals.
The Beer: Märzen vs Festbier
For most of the festival's history the beer served was Märzen — an amber lager brewed in March (März) and lagered through summer for autumn drinking, with a Maillard-rich, bready, moderately sweet character at 5.8–6.3% ABV. The template was set in 1872, when Josef Sedlmayr of the Franziskaner-Leistbräu brewery served a Vienna-style amber "Ur-Märzen" at the festival; Spaten still sells its descendant under that name.
In the 1970s Paulaner began offering a paler, somewhat lighter festbier alongside the traditional Märzen, reasoning that the amber beer was too filling for a long day in the tent. By around 1990 the pale festbier had displaced the amber Märzen as the primary beer in all the tents. The current festival beer is predominantly a clear, golden, moderately strong (5.8–6.3% ABV) lager — more like a premium Helles than the traditional amber Märzen. Many aficionados regret the shift; Spaten's Ur-Märzen and other Märzen remain available in bottles and year-round, but are not the default pour on the Wiesn.
For export markets and American craft breweries, "Oktoberfest" still usually means the amber style: Ayinger Oktober Fest-Märzen and dozens of American craft interpretations keep that tradition alive, while beers labeled "Festbier" follow the modern pale Wiesn model. For how the festival fits into the wider calendar of seasonal brewing, see our guide to seasonal beers and beer festivals.
The Masskrug
The standard serving vessel is the one-litre Masskrug (Maß = measure, Krug = jug/stein) — a heavy glass mug, often dimpled, that weighs about 1.3 kg empty and around 2.3 kg full. The heft makes it hard to knock over and satisfying to clink, though it doesn't stop souvenir hunters: security confiscates tens of thousands of mugs from departing guests every year. The festival itself opens at noon on the first Saturday when the mayor of Munich taps the first keg in the Schottenhamel tent and declares "O'zapft is!" ("It's tapped!"). Waitstaff carry extraordinary numbers of full mugs per trip, commonly ten or more at once, through shifts that run well over ten hours.
Dirndl, Lederhosen, and the Trachten Tradition
Traditional Bavarian dress — Tracht — is worn by a large share of locals and increasingly by visitors, though nobody is turned away without it. Women wear Dirndl (a dress with bodice, blouse, apron, and skirt); men wear Lederhosen (leather breeches, often knee-length) with a Bavarian shirt and knee-high socks. The Dirndl apron-bow supposedly carries a code: tied on the right, the wearer is taken or married; on the left, she is single; at the back, widowed (or a waitress). Whether anyone actually observes it, or it is merely tourist lore, depends considerably on the company.
The Trachten tradition is genuinely Bavarian — the garments are worn at village festivals, church events, and hunter's gatherings throughout rural Bavaria year-round — but it has been amplified into a cultural performance at Oktoberfest, where wearing it signals that a visitor is there to take part rather than just to watch.
Attendance, Economics, and the Wiesn
Oktoberfest draws roughly six to seven million visitors a year (6.5 million in 2025, 6.7 million in 2024), and the city puts its total economic value at around 1.5 billion euros in a normal year. The Wiesn (the colloquial term for the festival and its grounds) sits on permanent infrastructure (utilities, sewage, roads) over which the temporary tents are built and dismantled each year within tight windows. The city of Munich owns the Theresienwiese and decides every year, through a points-based application process, which landlords (Wiesnwirte) may run each tent; the breweries supply the beer, but the big tents are operated by these hosts, some of them families who have held a tent for generations. The allocation is closely watched and occasionally challenged in court.
Explore on the map
All six Munich Oktoberfest breweries — Augustiner, Paulaner, Spaten, Hofbräu, Hacker-Pschorr, and Löwenbräu — are on the interactive map, with their brewery addresses and Munich locations marked. Open the map filtered to Germany to find them and plan a Munich itinerary that includes both the festival grounds and the year-round brewery venues, and see our top breweries in Germany for the rest of the country.