A Little-Known Fact: German Beer Gardens Only Use Chestnut Trees

Sipping a cold, fresh beer in a ‘garden’ with hundreds of strangers is simply beautiful

Photo by Sarah Donovan on Unsplash

If you like beer, as I do, and even if you don’t really like beer, sitting in a Bavarian beer garden is something that not only makes you feel grateful for having been thirty but also helps you realize how good it is to be alive.

First of all, please take note that I emphasized “Bavarian beer garden.”

Bavarians don’t mess around with their beer gardens and while you can surely find good ones all over Germany and even in Austria, few seem to capture the magic and hoppy-quaintness the Bavarians do. (I should note that when I see attempts at beer gardens home in the U.S., I am usually a bit disappointed.)

Rule number one in Bavaria is that the “garden,” the space where the tables are situated, be located under a canopy of thick, layer-upon-layer Chestnut tree leaves. Chestnut trees it seems are amazing at blocking out the sun while still letting in just enough to prevent the whole affair from turning into an over-shadowed, and dingy, cold one.

Dappled and dancing off of the golden pours of beer, made even more uniquely rich in color thanks to the fluffy, snow-white heads, the most determined…