literally “the court’s brewhouse,” is the name of a large brewery in Riem on the outskirts of Munich owned by the state of Bavaria. It is also the name of their brewery tap at Platzl in downtown Munich, reputedly the world’s most famous tavern. A chain of Hofbräuhaus taverns in Germany and overseas (as well as a chain of brewpubs that brew Hofbräuhaus beers under license in the United States) was launched in 2000.

Several purveyors of beer to the Bavarian court have called themselves “Hofbräu” since the 15th century. The earliest documentation mentions the brewer Berchtold Pörtzl in 1440, who ran a brewery in Sendlinger Strasse in Munich. The Hofkammer, the Bavarian court’s ministry of finance, decided to build their own brewery in 1589—primarily to supply the royal court with dunkel (dark) lager beer and weissbier (wheat beer). Later projects, starting with the two wheat beer breweries “Weisses Hofbräuhaus” in Munich and the Weissbierbrauhaus in Kelheim (now ”Schneider Weisse”) in 1607, were built for the purpose of selling beer to the general public for profit. The Weisses Hofbräuhaus was located at the now well-known address at Platzl in downtown Munich—the wheat beer production was sold off and moved out in 1802. The duke’s (and later king’s) still thriving lager beer brewery moved into these premises. The brewery tap opened in 1828, making the place so famous and successful that the actual production had to be relocated again in 1896 to make room for an even larger brewery tap. Part of the success story is the well-known tune “In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus, oans, zwoa, gsuffa” (“In Munich there stands a Hofbräuhaus, one, two, chug-a-lug”), composed by Wiga Gabriel in 1936. It is still sung all over the world by every “oompah” band, and the tune is fairly inescapable during Munich’s Oktoberfest and all of its many descendants.