Mathäser

In 1690 the first beer hall opened on the site of today's Mathäser in Munich's Ludwigsvorstadt. In 1818, the brewer Georg Hartl, owner of the Zum Kleinen Löwengarten beer hall on what was then Landsberger Straße (today Bayerstraße), bought the Fuchsbräu, which was founded in the 15th century. In previous years, Hartl had already acquired several adjacent plots of land. His real estate thus took up almost all of what later became Mathäser. With the help of the Fuchsbräurechte, Fuchsbräu's brewing rights, Hartl planned to found a new brewery on his property and to shut down the original Fuchsbräu brewery on Schwabinger Gasse. In the same year he received a concession to open his Hartlische brewery on the Löwengarten site and began building the new brewery building. The rooms of the old lion garden initially served as a beer bar. Hartl ran the business until his death in 1825, after which it passed to his heirs until 1829.

From 1829 to 1832, Max J. Boshart ran the Härtlisches Brauhaus, from 1832 to 1844 it was owned by the "Braugrafen" Theobald Graf von Buttler-Haimhausen and was called Buttler-Bräu. Buttler's heirs leased the brewery to Anton Köck from 1847 to 1855, then to Ludwig Brey until 1857. In 1858, Georg Mathäser acquired the property. He initially stopped the brewery and only continued the hospitality business. In 1872 he resumed brewing under the name Mathäser-Bräu. After his death in 1874, his widow Anna Mathäser continued the business, with the brewery using the name Mathäser-Bräu from 1874 to 1884 as well as the former name of Zum bayerischen Löwen (English: The Bavarian Lion) resumed. In 1884, the company was converted into the joint-stock brewery Zum Bayerischen Löwen, formerly A. Mathäser. [1]

In 1892, a new brewery building was constructed. The former factory rooms were converted into beer halls and August Exter built a new wing on the street side with a representative facade in the neo-Renaissance style. In 1899-1900, the Heilmann & Littmann construction company added a two-story hall extension to the building. The upper hall was equipped with a wooden barrel roof and wall paintings by Julius Mössel.

In 1907, Löwenbräu AG bought the Mathäser, which had already become a well-known Munich institution, and expanded it with three beer halls, a ballroom and a beer garden with seating for around 4,000. In 1915, brewing operations were discontinued. [2]

At the end of the First World War, a workers and soldiers council was constituted in the Mathäser-Bräu under the chairmanship of Kurt Eisner on the night of November 7-8, 1918. About 1,000 people gathered in the ballroom, who had separated themselves from a mass pacifist demonstration on the Theresienwiese. [3] This event was the birth of the Munich Soviet Republic. The Mathäser location was probably chosen because of its spaciousness, its popularity and the central location between the main train station, Wittelsbacher Palais, state parliament building, foreign ministry, residence and police headquarters. It subsequently served as the headquarters of the revolutionary movement. After the revolution was crushed, the Mathäser returned to its original function as a beer pub. The Munich artist Oskar Maria Graf called for a revolution in 1919, for which he rented the Mathäser; however, the event had extremely low turnout.