Drunken in Munchen

Let’s be frank, I’m not brilliant at getting drunk.

It’s not that I’m a bad drunk per se, but since my uni days my tolerance has faded and I’m much better suited to a lazy pub garden or the frantic but well partitioned boozing of a hot festival day.

So, the morning after the night before, eating pizza along the tramlines of Munich, Stag Day 2 of 3, the first beer is an inevitable mistake. The 12 o’clock rule is in force, but at this moment I’m still trying to capture the final moments of last night, which are seemingly lost to a cerebal rewiring courtesy of Jagermeister and pils.

München is a city of myriad greys, criss crossed by tracks, streets and wires, punctuated by the greens of large municipal gardens. The hostels spill out into the streets, huge brick buildings of tiny square windows – each as easily an old warehouse as a former prison – with central courtyards full of slamming lockers and hi-fiving youths.

We’d arrived too late at the Hofbräuhaus, so rather than dance on tables with steins, we found ourselves chatting over Bundesliga in a pub circled around a strong, twisted, plastic tree. The landlord was decidedly Brothers Grimm but jovially threw foaming beer at us until we staggered home.

Back at the hostel Jagers send us to bed, and so, the next morning, with little breakfast and hayfever tablets at the ready, the first beer by the tram line gone, I’m feeling a little light-headed as we reach the Englischer Garten for an afternoon of large lagers and a boiling hot sun.

Englischer Garten

The whole of the city seems to have congregated in the squares and tree lined routes to the park, stereotypical German efficiency cast aside for an opportunity to feel the sun on skin and drink buckets of beer all day. Surfers on shuffle along Munich’s rapids, ice creams everywhere, the nudist meadow seeing an uplift in footfall.

Twelve English twentysomethings don’t look out of place – not in the Englischer Garten, not in the clubs later that night, nor on a pilgrimage to the Allianz Arena the next day. Munich could be Manchester, Germany could be England, the workers flocking to the public squares on the first sunny day of the year, to drink lager, dress down and play Wembley in the park.

And galvanised under the German sunshine, it’s time to begin the turbulence of stag do laughter and merriment that ensues.

Sunshine in Munich

Beer garden food

Allianz Arena

Munich by night

FletchtheMonkey

Mark is better known as @fletchthemonkey and started writing about beer in 2009. When not content with spending all day on the internet working in digital for an multichannel retailer, Mark waxes lyrical at digitalmediamonkey.co.uk and types up match reports for Leeds Guide magazine.

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