Chinese Tower Beer Garden

A five-storey wooden pagoda standing in the middle of a Bavarian beer garden is exactly the kind of thing that shouldn't work but absolutely does. The Chinesischer Turm was built in 1790, just a year after the Englischer Garten itself was created, and its design was inspired by the Great Pagoda at London's Kew Gardens. The 25-metre tower has a diameter of 19 metres at ground level, narrowing to 6 metres at the top, and on summer evenings a brass band plays from its first-floor balcony while 7,000 people drink beer below.

This is Munich's second-largest beer garden, and it runs on a system that would confuse anyone unfamiliar with Bavarian customs. The self-service area — by far the larger section — lets you bring your own food. Locals arrive with elaborate picnic spreads: cheese boards, radishes carved into spirals (the Radi), obatzda cheese dip, and pretzels the size of steering wheels. The only thing you must buy from the garden is the beer, which comes in one-litre Mass steins and is consumed with a seriousness that borders on devotional.

The original pagoda was destroyed by an air raid in 1944 and faithfully rebuilt in 1952. Münchners didn't wait for the tower to be fully restored before they started drinking around it again — the beer garden reopened before the tower was even finished, because priorities are priorities.

Every July, the Kocherlball takes place here at 6am on a Sunday morning. The tradition began in the 19th century, when up to 5,000 servants from Munich's noble households would meet at the Chinese Tower on Saturday mornings for a dance before their masters woke up. The modern revival draws thousands of early risers in traditional Bavarian dress, dancing waltzes and polkas at dawn. By 8am it's over, and the beer garden returns to its usual rhythm.