Erdinger brewery, the Erdinger brewery, Erdinger beer, wheat beer Erdinger, wheat brewery Erdinger

Erdinger brewery tour is one of the best things to do in Munich, as beer and Germany go extremely well together! After all, beer production has in Germany a very long tradition. This is best shown at the world’s famous beer festival in the world – Oktoberfest. But did you know that Germany has also the world’s biggest wheat beer brewery?

Erdinger brewery tour

Erdinger brewery produces 8 different types of beer – from non alcohol to the one, having 7,3% of alcohol (Erdinger brewery tour)

The Erdinger brewery lies a little bit out of Munich, but that did not stop us from visiting this long established family run business. The Erdinger brewery has been established in 1886 and with a help of German National Tourist Board, we were able to see the brewery in their guided tour out of the regular hours.  The Erdinger brewery is the largest wheat beer brewery in the whole world and it was amazing to see the whole company up close, including the production processes.

The Erdinger guided tour starts with a short movie, where we can find out more about the history and facts of this largest wheat beer brewery in the world. Everything started in the old premises, standing in the middle of the Erding city. Even now, there is hustle and bustle around Erdinger beer, as inside everything is renovated as a hotel and restaurant.

Erdinger brewery tour

We can get good beer only from the best ingredients and these are very important part in the Erdinger brewery (Erdinger brewery tour)

The town of Erding has 35.000 inhabitants and is a nice renovated medieval town. Honestly told, we were a little bit upset to have such a tight schedule, as we would love to explore the town a little bit longer. Oh well, even though we were able to feel, how strong effect the Erdinger brewery has on the town and its people. The whole town lives and breathes with the brewery – after all many people are employed there.

Erdinger brewery tour

The Erdinger brewery employs 500 people (Erdinger brewery tour)

During the Erdinger guided tour you can easily see how proud are the employees in the Erdinger brewery and how well the company cherishes their work force. Out of 500 employees, there are lots of people, who have been working in the company for 10 20, 30 and even 40 years. Many companies forgot that employees are one of the valuable assets, but that is not the case with Erdinger. Here all the employees are put on a publicly seen wall, where is stated how long someone worked for them.

Erdinger brewery tour

All the loyal employees have a special wall in the Erdinger brewery, with their photo and date of employment (Erdinger brewery tour)

The guided tour showed us all the production processes, so we were able to see ourselves, how the Erdinger beer is being made. Seeing the assembling line, where more than 120.000 bottles are filled each hour is amazing!

Erdinger brewery tour

120.000 bottles can be filled each hour in the Erdinger brewery (Erdinger brewery tour)

The Erdinger beer is drank and popular all around the world. Their biggest markets are Austria, Switzerland, UK, Italy, Ireland and China. If you are one of the Erdinger fans, you will like their well stocked fan shop. You can get almost everything here – from beer glasses to backpacks and leather hosen – all are, of course, marked with the Erdinger logo!

The Erdinger brewery aims to have an ecological / green production. They have their own recycling department, where old bottles are brought in and going out clean and ready to be re-used. They also have enormous siloses, in where they put used wheat and stock local farmers with it. Almost nothing is wasted away.

Erdinger brewery tour

The Erdinger guided tour shows us all the production processes (Erdinger brewery tour)

Years ago the Erdinger brewery decided to produce its beer strictly in Erding. The reason is that if they would have breweries in other parts of the world, they could not really control beer taste and quality, as even a tiny ingredient makes the specific Erdinger taste. So no matter where you open your Erdinger beer bottle, you always get the very same taste. Due to their strategy, they have a huge warehouse, which is robotize from head to toe. The view on the robot, searching for specific code, is out of this world, especially if you see this for the very first time.

Erdinger brewery tour

The Erdinger warehouse is completely robotized (Erdinger brewery tour)

It is all about the quality in the Erdinger brewery –quality is their priority, even thought that means a little bit higher prices of the beer. Only sticking up to quality makes your good name out to the world and on the long run, you get satisfied and faithful costumers.

Erdinger brewery tour

The Erdinger brewery is the world’s largest wheat beer brewery (Erdinger brewery tour)

Guided tour around the Erdinger brewery will make you thirsty for sure, so the tour ends at their tasting room, which is done like a pub. You can taste all eight Erdinger beers here and to top this up, you even get a pretzel and the white sausage – it cannot get more typical Bavarian than this.

Some facts about the Erdinger brewery

  • The Erdinger brewery was established in 1886
  • The Erdinger brewery is family run business
  • There are 500 employees in the Erdinger brewery
  • Erdinger has 8 different types of beers
  • 1,75 million hectoliters of beer is yearly produced in Erdinger brewery
  • Erdinger brewery is the world’s largest wheat beer brewery
  • Erdinger beer is fermentated twice – the second time is traditionally done in bottles (similar to  sparkling wine), what is nowadays a very rare process
  • The Erdinger beer comply with the Bavarian Purity Law, meaning no preservatives, additives and pasteurization are added to their beer
  • Their Alkoholfrei beer is promoted as an isotonic recovery drink and that is why they are sponsoring different sport events like marathons, triathlons, biathlons
  • More than 120.000 bottles are filled each hour in the Erdinger brewery
  • They stock more than 15 million bottles of beer in their warehouse
  • Turn around in the warehouse is 1 million beer bottles per day
  • Producing good beer needs good qualities and one of the most important ingredient is water – that is why Erdinger brewery has two private water springs
  • Each year the Erdinger brewery has its own beer festival »Erdinger Herbstfest«, which last for 10 days in two large tents. The festival attracts more than 100.000 visitors each year.
  • The Erdinger beer can be bought in more than 90 countries in the world

The Erdinger brewery tour

Erdinger guided tour attracts around 20.000 visitors yearly, who mostly come in organized groups. You can still attend the guided tour as an individual visitor. Their guided tour is organized three times per day (10am, 2pm and 6pm), but note that reservation is needed and that the tour starts only for a group with minimal 10 people. Erdinger guided tour can be done in English, German or Italian and last about 3 hours – including with tasting, which takes the longest time.

Erdinger brewery tour

Tasting the Erdinger beer includes pretzel and traditional Bavarian white sausage (Erdinger brewery tour)

The price for Erdinger brewery tour: 12 EUR/adult, 6 EUR/students (the price includes the tour, beer tasting, pretzel and white sausage)

How to reach Erdinger brewery?

The easiest way from Munich to Erding is by local transport – take the green line S2, direction Erding, as the town is the last stop. At the S-Bahn station is also a bus stop, where you have to take a bus nr. 540 or 530. You should get off at the stop »Brauerei« (Franz-Brombach 1street). To reach Erdinger brewery from a Munich city center, you need at least 60 minutes – even more if you miss a bus, so we recommend you to have at least 1,5 hour planned for the transport.

Erdinger brewery tour

The Erdinger brewery has its own pub, where we can taste all their beers after the guided tour (Erdinger brewery tour)

Taking part of the Erdinger brewery tour, we can only say, that our visit was an icing on the cake of our Munich travel. Beer, pretzels and white sausages are symbol for Bavaria region and as well for its local and traditional life. If you do not try it, you can never really get to know it, so visiting the Erdinger brewery is a must thing to do for sure!