Oktoberfest Opens. Munich's Seventh Brewery Can't Get In

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Oktoberfest Opens Today, Pouring Only Munich Beer. Munich's Seventh Brewery Can't Get In.

Woody Magazine

We write the things that aren't news

Sept. 19, 2026 (Sat.)

Food & DrinkSept. 19, 2026

Oktoberfest Opens Today, Pouring Only Munich Beer. Munich's Seventh Brewery Can't Get In.

The festival rulebook sets conditions for the beer, then names the six breweries allowed to pour it.

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In Three Lines

  1. Munich's Oktoberfest rules allow only Munich beer brewed to a purity law from 1487, and they list the six breweries by name.
  2. Giesinger Bräu, started in a Munich garage in 2006, has carried the EU-protected "Münchner Bier" label since 2021. It still can't pour at the festival.
  3. This isn't a story about six breweries that don't belong. It's about a list that doesn't grow when a new brewery meets the conditions.

At noon today in Munich, Mayor Dominik Krause will swing a mallet into a keg in the Schottenhamel tent and shout "O'zapft is!" It is Bavarian for "It's tapped." Until he does, no tent on the Theresienwiese may sell a drop of beer.

It will be Krause's first time; he took office in May. About six million visitors are expected before the 191st Oktoberfest closes on Oct. 4, roughly 375,000 a day.

The name travels well. Last Saturday a festival in Seoul opened with the same shout, under a name its organizers say Munich officially approved. Inside Munich, though, there is a brewery that carries the city's protected beer label and still can't sell a glass at the real thing.

Section 51

The city runs Oktoberfest, and the city council approves its operating rules again every year. This year's rulebook runs to 82 pages, covering everything from tent hours to garbage. Beer is in Section 51.

Section 51 calls Oktoberfest a traditional festival of Munich beer. So the beer must meet Munich's purity law of 1487 and Germany's of 1906, old rules that limit what may go into the brew.

That is the condition. Then the section goes a step further. The beer must come from Munich's traditional breweries, which the festival's official website describes in English as "established and reputable." A parenthesis then names them, prefaced by the word "currently": Augustiner, Hacker-Pschorr, Löwenbräu, Paulaner, Spaten and the state-owned Hofbräuhaus.

None of that sounds strange. A Munich festival serves Munich beer, and an old festival keeps its old brewers. Most readers would stop there.

In practice the section works like an approved-vendor list. A building's management sets standards for any contractor, then posts the names of the contractors allowed through the door. A new plumber can meet every standard and still be turned away if the name isn't posted.

A Well in Giesing

Steffen Marx started Giesinger Bräu in a garage in Munich's Giesing district in 2006. Today it brews about 50,000 hectoliters a year, roughly 14 million 12-ounce cans.

To call that beer Munich beer, Marx needed more than a Munich address. "Münchner Bier" is a geographical name protected by the European Union, the same system that guards names like Parmigiano Reggiano. The beer has to be made in the right place and the right way, including with water from a deep well beneath the city.

Giesinger drilled one at its second plant, and since 2021 it has used the label. Any brewery that meets the conditions can. That made Giesinger the seventh brewery making Munich beer. It is still not on the Oktoberfest list.

The Capacity Question

The rule's German wording is closer to "capable and proven," and that first word points to a fair objection. A big Oktoberfest tent seats thousands, and a small brewery would struggle to keep one supplied for 16 days. Marx concedes the point. In a 2024 interview he said Giesinger couldn't then supply one of the giant tents, though a smaller one would be no problem.

That same year, the Augustiner executive then chairing the association of the six incumbents made a similar case. Oktoberfest brings duties as well as rights, he said, and what counts is capacity.

But Section 51 never puts a number on capacity. It doesn't say how much a brewery must produce, or how many years make it "established." What it contains is six names. It is as if the building spelled out its pipe standards, never said how big a plumbing firm had to be, and posted six names.

The city's answer circles the same spot. In 2024, a spokesman for its economic department said admitting Giesinger would need no new rule; the brewery just has to meet the conditions. He did not say which conditions it misses.

21,000 of 35,000
Signatures Giesinger had gathered by early September toward a citywide referendum, according to The Wall Street Journal

So Giesinger set out to get the list rewritten. On Feb. 19 it began collecting signatures for a referendum. If about 3 percent of Munich's voters sign, the city council must take up the question. If the council doesn't adopt it, the brewery says, a referendum follows within three months.

The drive passed 10,000 signatures in five weeks and reached 21,000 over the summer, three-fifths of the way there. The outcome is still open.

Who Owns the Six

By now it would be natural to picture the six as old Munich family firms. The picture is more mixed.

Spaten and Löwenbräu merged in 1997 and were sold in 2003 to the Belgian brewer Interbrew, which through later mergers became AB InBev. Paulaner and Hacker-Pschorr belong to the Paulaner group, owned 70 percent by Munich's Schörghuber group and 30 percent by Heineken.

The Hofbräuhaus is owned by the state of Bavaria. Augustiner's largest shareholder is a charitable foundation set up in 1996.

None of this breaks the rules. All six brew in Munich, to the purity law. The rules ask where and how the beer is made. They don't ask who holds the shares. So as owners changed, the names on the list stayed put.

Rules like this are usually read as protecting a place. That is half right: beer brewed outside Munich still can't get in. The list does the other half. When a new brewery meets the conditions, the list doesn't grow on its own.

An approved-vendor list doesn't change when a new plumber opens a shop. It changes when management rewrites it. Munich rewrites this one every year. This year it copied out the same six names.

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Sources

Woody Magazine is edited and published by Woody. Claude AI is used as a tool in the editorial process, and all editorial judgment and final responsibility rest with the editorial desk. Readers are encouraged to verify independently.

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