Region & History

Weihenstephan is considered the world's oldest brewery—and that claim comes from the brewery itself. It cites the year 1040, when Abbot Arnold of the Benedictine monastery on the Freising hill was granted the right to brew and serve beer. Historically, the date is disputed, and unbroken operation since then has never been proven.

The monastery itself is even older. It traces back to Saint Korbinian, who came to Freising around 725. On the hill above the town, monks prayed, taught, farmed, and brewed, just as was customary at many monasteries.

In 1803, the Bavarian state dissolved the monasteries in what is known as secularization. All rights, property, and capital passed to the Free State, and the brewery remained in state hands. Since 1921 it has carried the name Bayerische Staatsbrauerei Weihenstephan, and it still belongs to the Free State of Bavaria today.

Freising has a second historic address too: the Gräfliches Hofbrauhaus Freising. According to the brewery, the prince-bishop's court brewery on the Domberg was first mentioned in 1160. In 1803 it passed to the Counts of Moy, a new building went up on its current site in 1912, and since January 1, 1999 it has belonged to the Counts of Toerring-Jettenbach.

Then there's the science. Today, the Weihenstephaner Berg is home to a campus of the Technical University of Munich, where brewing is studied and researched. The protected designation "Bayerisches Bier" (PGI, registered in 2001) applies to beer from all of Bavaria, including Freising, and ties it to the Bavarian Purity Law without added sugar.