The Wirtshaus: Beer, Taverns, and Everyday Life
The rain caught us unawares. A veil of mist rapidly descended, shrouding the hills in the distance. The first few drops announced themselves with a rattle through the leaves. Soon the path was a series of tiny rivulets. Leaves in autumn hues swirled around as the wind picked up, drifting down to the path and making it all the more slick. Night wasn’t far behind the rain.
We trudged on. A half hour later we arrived at the Wirtshaus in the center of town, soaked and bedraggled. The tavern didn’t open till 6:30 p.m., but the innkeeper took pity on us and conducted us to a corner of the Wirtshaus. “I just added a few logs to the Kachelofen,” she said. “You can hang your clothes up to dry on these chairs while I get you a beer.”
The Wirtshaus started to fill up as we downed one beer and then another. The Stammtisch overflowed to the next table, and then the next. Before long, it was as if the entire village had crowded in, some with kids in tow, a few younger folks on dates, and other seasoned drinkers.
A small group of burly men with broad grins joined us at our table, curious to hear about these two wanderers who clearly weren’t from this Bavarian village snug up against the border with Bohemia. So it goes at the Wirtshaus, where tables for two are rare. Some had worked in construction. Another was a local farmer who supplied pork to the butcher around the corner. The conversation grew more animated as the empty glasses lined up and the talk turned to the state of the world today. Our food arrived and we tucked in. After a few minutes the farmer proudly proclaimed that the Schweinsbraten and Schnitzel on our plates had come from his farm.
Up till then I’d met the occasional butcher behind the Sauerbraten, Krustenbraten, Tellerfleisch, or Schnitzel that arrived at my table. (It’s not uncommon for the innkeeper to own the adjacent butcher shop, especially in rural Bavaria.) And I’d often read the prominent section on many a Wirtshaus menu about the farmers and producers of local products like cheese and baked goods. But this was the first time I had sat down to a Wirtshaus meal with the farmer who raised the animals that make it to our plates. That’s unsurprising in retrospect. It’s a point of pride for innkeepers to support the local economy. It was only a matter of time before I met one of those purveyors of local goodness.
Why Wirtshäuser?
We’d be missing something central to German beer culture if we confined our discussion to breweries and beer gardens without saving time for the Wirtshaus. Why? Because the Wirtshaus occupies a prominent place in Central European beer culture, particularly in Bavaria, Austria, and southwestern Germany. Although the analogy isn’t perfect, the Wirtshaus is to Bavaria and Austria what the pub is to Britain.
German beer is a top-notch gustatory experience in its own right. Pair it with the culinary traditions that grew up around beer in establishments where villagers and townsfolk congregate to toast the day’s accomplishments, and that experience becomes sublime. Food and drink is front and center, of course. But it’s also about the “feel” of the Wirtshaus. It’s about Frühschoppen, a tradition as simple as a few Sunday pints with friends after church or a morning ritual consisting of a Weisswurst washed down with Weissbier. It’s about the coziness of wood paneling and rustic furnishings, the warmth of the Kachelofen, the old prints, or the antlers lining the walls. Above all, it’s about conviviality.
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German historian and heritage preservationist Egon Johannes Greipl begins his introduction to the Wirtshaus with a bold assertion. This culinary and cultural institution, he proclaims, “belongs to the great accomplishments of civilization.” The Wirtshaus is a place where travelers in need of food and drink know where to turn, a place where locals can flee the confines of their apartment to see new faces and seek out the company of their own.[1]
Numerous friendships have been struck up around the tables of a Wirtshaus, and not a few have ended there. The backrooms of Gasthäuser have been the scene of business negotiations and transactions. They’ve also been the scene of political intrigue where oaths are taken, alliances forged, and insurrections plotted.[2]
The Wirtshaus is in many respects the scene of everyday life, a place where people come together to eat and drink under the same roof, or to celebrate life’s milestones.
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This is the first in a series of posts about the Wirtshaus, its history, and its tasty food that I’ll be rolling out as I workshop ideas for my book chapter on the Wirtshaus. Stay tuned for more!
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What Is a Wirtshaus? It’s All German to Me
Trying to define a Wirtshaus is a fool’s errand. Even German speakers differ over where a Wirtshaus ends and a conventional restaurant begins. Aside from the relative hominess or upscale character of the place, it’s only at the margins that the real distinctions arise. A Wirtshaus is not beer hall, nor is it a bar. Nor, in the case of Vienna, is it a Heuriger (wine garden).
So just what is a Wirtshaus, you might be asking? It’s an inn, a tavern, a guesthouse, a place to eat.[3] Also known as a Gasthaus, Gaststätte, or Gasthof, these charmingly rustic tavern-inns run the gamut from simple fare to creative interpretations of German or Austrian cuisine.[4] Gaststätte Fraunhofer in Munich, Restaurant Hotel Alt-Ringlein in Bamberg, and Gasthaus Wild in Vienna thread the needle between hearty traditional dishes and Central European food with a novel twist.
Nominally speaking, the Wirtshaus is a tavern and the Gasthaus is an inn, but in practice these boundaries are blurry, even in English. Modest Wirtshäuser (the plural of Wirtshaus) offer a few kinds of beer, wine, and schnapps to accompany a short menu of schnitzel, sausage, dumplings, and goulash, while others reach the pinnacle of culinary excellence. Whatever the case, Wirtshäuser typically serve regional or local cuisine. In all of these establishments, you can stop in for just a drink or three without having to order food.
When a brewery has its own Wirtshaus, you’ll see words like Brauereigaststätte, Brauereigasthof, Braustube, Brauhaus, and a whole host of regional variations. Bamberg breweries like Schlenkerla, Klosterbräu and Mahrs Bräu are a case in point, as are many of the places you’ll find along hiking routes in Franconian Switzerland (Held-Bräu and Weissenohe, to name but a few). Some, like Spezial and Fässla in Bamberg, or Lindenbräu, Kundmüller and Sonne in Franconia’s towns and villages, are inns that offer accommodation along with food and their beer brewed on premises.
Rhineland Brauhäuser like Päffgen or Peters in Cologne, or Zum Uerige or Zum Füchschen in Düsseldorf, occupy a space between the inns of Bavaria and the beer cafes of Belgium, but they’re similar enough to Wirtshäuser that I include them under the Wirtshaus umbrella. In Baden-Württemberg in southwestern Germany (and, indeed, in all points north), the Hausbrauereien (brewpubs) that sprung up in the 1980s and 1990s try to capture some of that “Wirtshaus essence” as well.
Last but not least, some Wirtshäuser preside over beer gardens, such as Hinterbrühl and Siebenbrunn, to name but a few in Munich. These establishments are known as much for their leafy oases as they are for their cozy interiors. This is salutary, for you can visit these kinds of establishments no matter the weather, and no matter the season. Other spots include the Augustiner-Keller in Munich, Drei Königinnen in Augsburg, Kloster Reutberg in Upper Bavaria, and Greifenklau in Bamberg. And that doesn’t even scratch the surface.
The Wirtshaus and Everyday Life
If anything, the Wirtshaus is an overarching cultural object—a concrete, physical place as much as it is an element of culinary and cultural identity or the object of nostalgia. Like the British pub and the Belgian beer cafe, the Wirtshaus is a social hub, a place where families, friends, and dyed-in-the-wool regulars stop by for a drink or a meal. It’s where locals catch up on the happenings of the day, or where out-of-towners come to get a sense of the local beer, cuisine, and culture. It’s also a venue for graduation ceremonies, wedding celebrations, and celebrations of life when someone passes. In short, the Wirtshaus follows the rhythms and rituals of daily life. It’s not for nothing that the Wirtshaus has been likened to a living room.
The Wirtshaus as Living Room
The cultural meaning of the Wirtshaus draws upon deep-seated tradition.[5] During the nineteenth century the Wirtshaus was the “living room” of villages and big cities alike, a function that persisted well into the postwar period. The Wirtshaus was a gathering place during market days, on holidays, or after church services. It was also where a myriad of clubs and associations ranging from the political world to sports to the arts held their meetings in backrooms or at the Stammtisch.
Though the historical notion that all social classes mixed freely in the Wirtshaus is exaggerated, different groups and classes did occupy the same space, even if they didn’t always sit together. Dignitaries, politicians, scholars, farmers, workers, students, artists, musicians and, in the nineteenth century, peasants and servants—all gathered in the Wirtshaus “living room.”
These days, the idea of the Wirtshaus as living room rings quaint. In fact, though, it obscures an almost-forgotten historical reality, especially in Central European cities that experienced rapid urbanization and industrialization during the nineteenth century. Dire housing shortages fueled the proliferation of these modest Wirtshaus “living rooms” in urban quarters marked by miserable living conditions.[6] In winter, the Wirtshaus provided heat and a place to pass the time. The Wirtshaus was also a “kitchen” for workers who had no cooking facilities of their own. In short, the contemporary notion of the urban Wirtshaus as living room is rooted in a precarious way of life.[7]
That’s not to say that the Wirtshäuser that cropped up in working class areas didn’t also attract a varied clientele that included poets, composers, musicians, actors, and intellectuals of varying stripes. But even to nineteenth-century observers, the Wirtshaus maintained somewhat of a “rugged” identity in comparison with the coffeehouses closer to the centers of financial and political power.[8]
The Wirtshaus Today
The Wirtshaus slowly shed its rugged reputation over the course of the twentieth century. By the closing decades of the century, the convivial enjoyment of beer in the Wirtshaus had become a symbol of community rooted in tradition.
Spurred by a fear that the Wirtshaus could be lost to the forces of globalization and changing consumption patterns, innkeepers and preservationists fueled a Wirtshaus revival during the 1970s and 1980s. This rebirth dovetails with the rediscovery of local and traditional culinary culture driven by the Slow Food movement in Italy and farm-to-table initiatives elsewhere. The Zoigl renaissance—which began a decade or so later—was also an effect of these rediscoveries.
Even if today’s Wirtshaus orients itself toward nostalgia for old-time Gemütlichkeit, the Wirtshaus remains very much a part of everyday life linking communities with local traditions. Nowadays, you’ll find folks from all walks of life and from all kinds of lifestyles. You’ll find families young and old. You’ll see students and the elderly, and friends catching up over a few Seidla of beer. Pull up a chair with them and order a drink.
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Back in eastern Bavaria, the rain that had dampened our hike was beginning to ease up. Warmed by the Kachelofen and the conviviality of it all, we finished up our Schweinsbraten and Schnitzel, a meal made all the tastier dining with the local farmer and his friends. The beer flowed liberally, as it does in these places, followed by a round of schnapps—locally distilled, of course—to close out the evening.
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Related Posts
The Wiener Schnitzel: Typically Viennese?
A Few of My Favourite Things: Belgian Beer Cafes
The Augustiner Bräustuben: From Barn to Beerhall
Endnotes
[1] Egon Johannes Greipl, “Eine Einführung in das historische Gasthaus,” in Karl Gattinger (ed.), Genuss mit Geschichte: Einkehr in bayerischen Denkmälern—Gasthöfe, Wirtshäuser und Weinstuben,” (Munich: 2018), 22.
[2] See Marita Kraus, “Wirtshaus und Politik,” in Rainhard Riepertinger, Evamaria Brockhoff, et. al. (eds.). Bier in Bayern, ex. cat., Haus der Bayrischen Geschichte (Regensburg: 2016), 86-90.
[3] Some Wirtshäuser in the countryside only serve food on Sundays or when there’s a wedding or funeral in the village. It’s a phenomenon I’ve witnessed on many a beer hike in rural Bavaria. Thanks to Thilo Wendisch (correspondence, 29 April 2021) for helping me crystalize these observations.
[4] Friends I’ve polled, along with scholars and curators who have grappled with the cultural meaning of the Wirtshaus, tend to agree that the differences between a Wirtshaus, Gasthaus, or Gasthof are differences of degree rather than kind. See, for example, the illuminating articles in the catalogue accompanying the Wien Museum’s wildly popular exhibition on Wirtshäuser (Ulrike Springer and Wolfgang Kos, eds., Im Wirtshaus: Eine Geschichte der Wiener Geselligkeit [Czernin, 2007]), along with insightful essays in Gattinger (ed.), Genuss mit Geschichte. See also Thomas Kramer, “Gasthaus des Wirtes, Wirtshaus der Gäste,” Die Presse (15 May 2020), accessed 2 June 2021. Correspondence about the topic with friends has also helped me gain a clearer picture of the fact that there is no clear picture of the Wirtshaus: Peter Stuiber (28 April 2021) and numerous in-person conversations; Daniel Katolnig (28 April 2021); Thilo Wendisch (29 April 2021); and sustained correspondence on the topic with Rainer Stobbe until his untimely passing in March 2024.
[5] See Birgit Speckle, Streit ums Bier in Bayern: Wertvorstellungen um Reinheit, Gemeinschaft und Tradition (München: Waxmann, 2001). Speckle’s work on the centrality of beer in Bavarian culture explores this connection between tradition and the significance of the Wirtshaus.
[6] See Werner Schwarz, “‘Trinkerland’ Neulerchenfeld: Vorstadtschenken zwischen Dorfkultur und Moderne,” in Im Wirtshaus, and Wolfgang Kos, “Mikrokosmos des Alltäglichen,” both in Im Wirtshaus.
[7] Kos, “Mikrokosmos des Alltäglichen,” 16.
[8] Schwarz, “‘Trinkerland’ Neulerchenfeld: Vorstadtschenken zwischen Dorfkultur und Moderne,” 90.
All images by Franz D. Hofer.
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