Beer & Hike: Klosterbrauerei Andechs

German monks, like their counterparts in Belgium, know a thing or two about the appeal of monastic-themed beer. There is nothing more beer than a label and name associated with a monastery or saint. Bavaria is a region particularly adept at taking advantage of the perfect marriage of beer and religious symbolism. You have Munich’s Franziskaner, Augustiner Bräu, and Paulaner sporting monk logos. There is also Tegernsee’s Kloster Brauerei to the south of Munich where you can combine the beer with a hike up the Baumgartenscheid.

Benedictine monks at the Kloster Andechs monastery to the west of Munich have also been brewing beer since 1455. In 1974, they modernized their brewery and went global with their distribution. Andechs sits on high ground near the Ammersee, one of the many beautiful lakes in Southern Bavaria. Unlike the village of Tegernsee, Andechs doesn’t have a train connection with Munich, but the nearby village of Herrsching does; setting up the perfect opportunity to organize a Winter Beer & Hike during my Christmas 2025 holiday in Munich. This is a well-traveled route and is a hike that was planned years ago during an Oktoberfest weekend. It lost out to yet another monastery brewery, Kloster Ettal near Oberammergau. So I was excited to finally get the opportunity to make the pilgrimage.

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About Munich train tickets

Arranging train tickets from Munich is possible with the MVV app, although I find the app supremely clunky and error prone. On a couple of occasions, I had to temporarily double-dip by standing in line at the ticket desk while fighting to purchase my ticket on the app. In the end, it always worked out. Though to my chagrin, I never encountered a single conductor to proudly reveal the fruits of my hard work.

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After roughly an hour train ride, I emerged from the Herrsching train station and set out on my way. The temperature was teetering on the freezing side of 0C, but it was dry. What would ultimately be lacking in terms of the natural beauty due to the slumbering foliage would be more than made up for by the warm, medieval beer-soaked atmosphere awaiting me at the Kloster Andechs Bräustüberl (remember to pronounce that BROY-stüberl).

Starting/Ending Point	Herrsching Train Station
Distance	11.8 km
Highlight	Kloster Andechs Beer

It’s Not Just a Beer, It’s a Journey

Herrsching is a small village so the hike quickly passes through it and reaches the forest. The path is wide, well-maintained and free of mud, the bane of all December hikes. It meanders gradually uphill towards Andechs. The forest gives its best effort despite the lack of make-up, but it doesn’t take much imagination to envision it in all its Spring, Summer, or Autumn glory. There was a slight mist in the air giving the hike a spiritual nature as if you wouldn’t be surprised to see a monk driving his cart into town to deliver kegs of beer or purchase supplies or pilgrims coming in both directions greeting each other with quiet nods or salutations.

Just at the foot of the abbey, the air is much colder and the trees were covered in a crystalline frost. I had to look twice to be sure it wasn’t the color of the bark.

The Bräustüberl interior has the warm old Europe wayside inn feel, perfect for a cold December day or a Hammer Film. The daily special was gulaschsüppe which went perfect with a half liter of Spezial Hell and a half liter of Weissbier Hell. What’s a liter of beer in the bladder when you have a few kilometers of lonely forest at your disposal?

I could have spent the rest of the afternoon in the warm, friendly confines of the Bräustüberl, but it was time to journey onwards. Outside, the frost covering all of the trees made the neighboring village of Erling look magical.

From a distance, you could get a better idea of the wintery mist hovering over the higher elevation.

The unopened bottle of beer I used in the photograph was purchased at the gift shop. For some unexplainable reason, I forgot to put it back in my backpack. I can imagine passersby debating whether to take it. Eventually someone gave in, I’m sure.

After Andechs, the hike follows a rather dull forestry road with little in terms of scenery. It passes one point of interest, a marker on the site of an abandoned village, Ramsee. The town seems to have been dissolved in the late 1800’s, and today nothing remains of any of its former buildings.

Emerging from the forest, the hike reaches what was supposed to be the 2nd brewery of the hike, Brauhaus Herrsching. However, contrary to Google Maps, it was closed for the holidays.

From the brauhaus, it is a short walk to the Ammersee and the waterfront promenade. Bavarian lakes seem to resonate blue like no other lakes.

I needed a celebratory beer and chose the Restaurant Hotel zur Post in Herrsching. It was the middle of the afternoon on a Monday, so it was quiet. I was disappointed to find that they weren’t serving any of the local beers like Andechs or Brauhaus Herrsching, but they had Augustiner-Bräu which was an acceptable substitute.

Final Remarks

Hikes like these are the ones that beckon you to return to them again. They feel fleeting compared to the mountain hikes of Wales or Switzerland, for example, and remind one more of the passage of time and the preciousness of it. In a way, they leave an empty space, not in a bad way, but as a placeholder for future memories. It makes them feel incomplete; that they need to be revisited to really capture their essence. Reflecting on this hike has brought back memories of Tegernsee and Ettal and of other Beer & Hikes that I have done in Bavaria, a place where these two characters intertwine like no other place in the world. There is still so much story to be told there; pilgrimages over rolling fields and next to crystal blue lakes, through quiet painted villages, and over mountain passes. And no matter where you are in Bavaria, you are never very far from a brewery. For centuries, the monks made sure of that.