Chinesischer Turm e.V.Why the garden is a garden
Why chestnut trees stand in beer gardens
The horse chestnut is not an ornamental tree. It stands in the beer garden because it once was the refrigeration, and the entire beer garden is a side effect of that refrigeration.
Beer was a winter product
Before mechanical cooling, beer could not be brewed reliably in summer. Bottom-fermenting yeast needs low temperatures, and in a warm brewhouse the batch spoiled. Bavaria drew the obvious conclusion and prohibited brewing in the warm season. Brewing happened in the winter half of the year, and the stronger Märzen laid down in spring had to last until autumn.
The cellar under the tree
To carry the stored beer through the summer, brewers dug deep beer cellars into the gravel of the city and the slopes above the Isar, filled them with ice cut from frozen ponds in winter, and covered them. And they planted trees on top.
The horse chestnut was the right choice for two reasons:
- The canopy
- It leafs out early and throws a dense, wide roof of foliage that keeps the sun off the ground, precisely in the months when the cellar had to stay cold.
- The roots
- It roots shallow and broad rather than deep. The vaults below stay intact. A tree with a taproot would have broken them.
From cellar to garden
Tables stood on the shaded gravel above the cellars. Brewers sold their beer where it was stored, cold and without transport. There was no food: the city's innkeepers successfully resisted letting the breweries take the catering trade as well. Anyone who wanted to eat at the cellar therefore brought their own.
That settles the origin of the right to bring your own picnic. It is not a modern concession but the remainder of an old settlement between brewers and innkeepers. From the beginning, a beer garden was a place where you buy beer and bring food.
At the Chinese Tower
The beer garden at the Chinese Tower has no cellar beneath it. It is the other original type: a tavern in a park, opened on 1 April 1792, two years after the tower was finished. The chestnuts here do not stand over a cellar. They stand because they belong to the picture, and because in July their canopy does for 7,000 seats what it once did for the ice: it makes the heat bearable.
This is why the Bavarian Beer Garden Ordinance requires garden character with substantial planting. No trees, no beer garden, not even in law.
What threatens the chestnut today
The horse chestnut is under pressure. The horse chestnut leaf miner turns the foliage brown as early as midsummer, and dry years and soil compacted by thousands of feet add to it. Anyone sitting under brown leaves in August is not looking at autumn but at an infestation. Preserving these trees is therefore not a gardening detail but a condition for the beer garden remaining what it is.
Frequently asked questions
Why are there chestnut trees in beer gardens?
Because horse chestnuts once shaded the beer cellars. Their dense canopy kept the cellars cool in summer, and their shallow roots did not damage the vaults below.
What is a beer garden?
An outdoor tavern with garden character where, by Bavarian tradition, guests may consume their own picnic. Both features together define a traditional beer garden.
Why was summer brewing banned in Bavaria?
Because bottom-fermenting yeast needs low temperatures and batches spoiled in the heat. Brewing took place in the winter half-year, and Märzen beer had to last through the summer.
Why may you bring your own food to a beer garden?
Because brewers at their cellars were only allowed to serve beer while innkeepers kept the food trade. Anyone eating at the cellar brought their own, and that became today's legal right.
Why is the chestnut foliage brown in summer?
Usually because of the horse chestnut leaf miner, whose larvae destroy the leaves from inside. Drought and compacted soil make it worse.