All About the Beer At Oktoberfest: What You Need to Know for Munich

What beer is served at Oktoberfest in Munich?

Customarily, the beer that’s served at Oktoberfest in Munich is what’s called a Festbier. This is a beer that’s brewed specially for the Oktoberfest beer tents. And you can only find this beer at Oktoberfest in Munich, nowhere else, no other time. There are only six breweries that are allowed to serve their festbiers at Oktoberfest.

What is a festbier?

What we know here in the United States as an “Oktoberfest” beer is a marzen-style lager on the darker, reddish side. The “festbier” you drink at Oktoberfest is a slight variation of this German beer style but is actually closer to a Munich Helles.

Do they serve “Oktoberfest” beer at Oktoberfest?

Serving Oktoberfest beer at Oktoberfest sounds like a no-brainer, right? Well, in a roundabout way they do, but only in the sense that a festbier is a variation of an “Oktoberfest” beer. If you’re expecting something darker and redder at Oktoberfest–like what we associate the term “Oktoberfest beer” with here in the US–you’re going to be seriously confused. (But still happy in the end because it’s still a German lager and it still works the same!)

Do they serve non-alcoholic beer at Oktoberfest?

Yes, just about all of the beer tents at Oktoberfest offer a non-alcoholic version of their festbier as well. They also come served in liter mugs (yay!) but cost the same as a regular beer (boo!). For the full list of Oktoberfest tents that sell non-alcoholic beer and what they offer, see my guide to Oktoberfest for non-beer drinkers.

Do they serve gluten-free beer at Oktoberfest?

Unfortunately for many, no, they don’t serve gluten-free beer at Oktoberfest. Thanks in part to Germany’s beer purity law (the Reinheitsgebot), beer must contain gluten. Luckily for you, there are several other options for things to drink at Oktoberfest. (Skip to this section.)

The Reinheitsgebot

The Reinheitsgebot is Germany’s beer purity law (a totally real thing) that came into existence in the year 1516. This law mandates that beer in Germany can only be brewed using four ingredients: water, hops, yeast, and malt (malted barley or wheat, that is).

Do they serve wheat beer at Oktoberfest?

Yes, you can order wheat beer at Oktoberfest, but only in certain locations. While the vast majority of beer sold at Oktoberfest is the traditional festbier, there are a couple of places you can find wheat beer (aka hefeweißbier, hefeweizen, etc.). For the full list of where to find wheat beer at Oktoberfest, see my non-beer-drinker’s guide to Oktoberfest.

How much beer is served at Oktoberfest?

Each year, millions of liters of beer are served in the beer tents at Oktoberfest. Here are the numbers for the last three years of the festival:

• 2023: 6.5 million liters of beer
• 2022: 7.1 million liters
• 2019: 7.3 million liters

Munich Breweries: The Big Six

The next thing you should know about beer at Oktoberfest is that only beer brewed by Munich’s “Big 6” breweries are allowed to be served. These are:

• Augustiner
• Hacker-Pschorr
• Hofbräu
• Löwenbräu
• Paulaner
• Spaten

Oktoberfest beer alcohol content

The beer at Oktoberfest has perhaps a slightly higher alcohol percentage than you might be used to or that you’d expect from a beer sold in such huge mugs and in such astounding volume. These ABVs start at 5.9% and go up to 6.2% (but you’d never know it given how drinkable they are). Here’s the full of list of Oktoberfest beer alcohol contents (from 2023’s batches):

• Spaten: 5.9%
• Hacker-Pschorr: 6.0%
• Paulaner: 6.0%
• Löwenbräu: 6.1%
• Hofbräu: 6.2%
• Augustiner: 6.2%

To give you some comparison, here are the ABVs of some popular beers in the US that you may be more familiar with:

• Bud Light: 4.2%
• Corona: 4.0%
• Heineken: 5%
• Michelob Ultra: 4.2%
• Guinness: 4.2%

Oktoberfest beer size

Beer at Oktoberfest is served by the liter. Yes, you read that right! There’s no such thing as a “small beer” here, so save yourself some embarrassment and don’t even ask. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to embarrass yourself after a few. It’s by the liter or not at all.

(That being said, if you order a wheat beer at one of the spots that serve it, they will actually serve it to you in a traditional half-liter wheat beer glass. But this is the only exception.)

Oktoberfest beer vessels

The giant glass mugs from which you drink beer at Oktoberfest are called maß or mass (pronounced like moss). Technically, maß is the term used to describe a liter of beer, as in the actual amount of beer, as maß literally translates to “measure.” In our case, maß is also used as an abbreviation for maßkrug–the word used to describe the actual liter-sized glass mug you drink from.

Cost of beer at Oktoberfest

The cost of beer at Oktoberfest changes each year (shocking, right?) and differs by tent. Generally, one liter of beer in the big tents at Oktoberfest (in 2024) will cost you somewhere between €14.10 and €15.10. (Or €17.40 for a half-liter of wheat beer in the wine tent which is nuts!) And don’t forget to tip!

What is the most popular beer at Oktoberfest?

So what’s the most popular beer at Oktoberfest? Well, that’s a hard one to answer. Most people visit certain beer tents because they enjoy the tent experience, not necessarily because they prefer one beer over another.

Everyone has their own preferences

Regardless of numbers, different audiences prefer different beers. Among locals and seasoned Oktoberfesters, Augustiner is the undeniable favorite and what many call the best beer. So perhaps the fact that they’re the most represented beer at Oktoberfest does correlate with their popularity. This includes myself as well; Augustiner is the superior Munich beer and that’s a hill I will die on.

Is there an official beer at Oktoberfest

No, there’s no “official” beer of Oktoberfest. The only thing “official” about the beers served here are that they’re all festbiers and that they exclusively come from one of the six Munich breweries–Augustiner, Hacker-Pschorr, Hofbräu, Löwenbräu, Paulaner, and Spaten. (All brewed within the Munich city limits.) Other than that, there’s no one single “official” Oktoberfest beer.

Which tents serve which beer at Oktoberfest

If you’d like to visit certain Oktoberfest beer tents based on what beer they sell, or you’re just curious about which tents serve which beer at Oktoberfest, here’s the full list of “large” beer tents:

• Armbrustschützenzelt: Paulaner
• Augustiner Festhalle: Augustiner
• Festzelt Tradition: Augustiner (in stone mugs)
• Fischer-Vroni: Augustiner
• Hacker Festzelt: Hacker-Pschorr
• Herzkasperlzelt: Hacker-Pschorr (in stone mugs)
• Hofbräu Festzelt: Hofbräu
• Käfer Wiesn-Schanke: Paulaner
• Kuffler’s Weinzelt: Paulaner (hefeweizen by the half-liter only; this is the wine tent afterall!)
• Löwenbräu Festzelt: Löwenbräu
• Marstall Festzelt: Spaten
• Ochsenbraterei: Spaten
• Paulaner Festzelt: Paulaner
• Pschorr-Bräurosl: Hacker-Pschorr
• Schottenhamel Festhalle: Spaten
• Schützen Festzelt: Löwenbräu
• Volkssängerzelt Schützenlisl: Augustiner (in stone mugs)

Do they only sell beer at Oktoberfest?

Even though Oktoberfest is widely known as a “beer festival,” you can in fact drink just about anything you want to here. Most of the tents also sell wine; some sell liquor; some have cocktail bars inside them, etc. All of them sell non-alcoholic beverages including soda, juices, spritzers, and more. Really, anything you want to drink, you can find it at Oktoberfest somewhere.

How to drink beer at Oktoberfest

I think we all know how to drink beer at this point in our lives, but here are a few things you should know specifically about drinking beer at Munich’s Oktoberfest. (These aren’t enforced laws or anything, just unspoken rules you should consider following.)

How to hold the glass

When you drink your beer at Oktoberfest, put your four fingers through the handle and rest your thumb on top. This glass is huge and heavy and this helps maintain stability and other reasons like not knocking your front teeth out.

But when you cheers glasses with other people, hold the handle with your whole hand like you normally would. This helps prevent smashed fingers and potentially the loss of blood. (The things I have seen!)

How to prost!

Now that you know how to hold the glass when cheers-ing, hear this: when prost!-ing with someone, you must look them in the eyes as your glasses touch. Yeah, it’s super awkward, but it’s also weird how serious everyone is about this.

How not to drink beer at Oktoberfest

Just as important as how you drink beer at Oktoberfest are the things you should avoid at all costs.

Don’t chug it

Oktoberfest is, above all, a marathon, not a sprint. Just because you’ve been handed a small keg of beer doesn’t mean you need to drink it as fast as possible. You don’t want to end up asleep in the grass outside before the sun goes down.

Don’t mix it

Another big Oktoberfest no-no is pouring what’s left of an old beer into your new beer. That little bit of warm leftover beer at the bottom of your glass is called naogerl. (Though you may know it as ‘backwash.’)

Not only should you not mix this into a new beer, you really shouldn’t drink it at all. There should always be a tiny bit of beer left in your mug when you move on to a new one.