Passau Breweries: Where to Drink Local Beer

Why Passau Drinks Its Own Beer

Passau is a small Lower Bavarian city where the local beer is genuinely local: Hacklberg brews for the city, and Löwenbrauerei has been brewing here since Franz Stockbauer laid the foundation in 1874. That makes the beer list in most Passau restaurants a short, regional one rather than a tour of Germany.

Bavaria's beer culture is built on exactly this pattern: city breweries supplying their own taprooms and the surrounding inns. In Passau that means you can drink a Hacklberger in the room where the beer is poured, and you can order a Löwenbrauerei beer elsewhere in town without ever seeing a brewery building.

For a fuller eating plan around the beer, the best restaurants in Passau covers the city's other Wirtshäuser and where they sit, so a beer can be one stop rather than the whole evening.

Hacklberger Bräustüberl: The Brewery Taproom

The Hacklberger Bräustüberl at Bräuhausplatz 7, 94034 Passau, describes itself as Passau's most beery Wirtshaus and has fed and watered the city since 1912. The kitchen cooks traditional Bavarian dishes from the Bräustüberl kitchen, and the taps pour fresh Hacklberger beer. It is the one address on this page where the brewery and the table are the same place.

The published hours are Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00, with Monday as Ruhetag, so a Sunday arrival in Passau works while a Monday one does not. The midday service is a tighter window than the opening time suggests: dishes run 11:00 to 13:30.

Hacklberger beer takes its name from the Hacklberg brewery behind the label on the glass. Knowing that helps when you scan a menu elsewhere in Passau and see Hacklberger alongside other regional beers.

What to Order at the Bräustüberl

The midday menu changes by week, and the sample published for 20–23 October 2026 shows the style: Schweinebraten with Reibeknödel, dark-beer sauce and Krautsalat (roast pork with grated dumplings, dark beer gravy and cabbage salad), chicken piccata on tomato spaghetti, spare ribs with barbecue sauce and fries, and a vegetarian vegetable-potato curry. Midday dishes run 11:00 to 13:30 and can be taken away.

Treat that list as an illustration of the cooking rather than a fixed menu; the kitchen changes its dishes by week. The Schweinebraten is the dish to pick for the classic Bavarian plate, while the week's vegetarian option is a reasonable light lunch before an afternoon on your feet.

For broader meat-free options in the city, Vegan and Vegetarian Food in Passau maps out where to eat without meat. The Bräustüberl's single vegetarian week dish is a lunch solution, not a vegetarian destination.

How the Bräustüberl Works: Rooms, Bar and Beer Garden

The inn is split into distinct zones, and where you sit changes the evening. The Zunftstube carries the sociable Wirtshaus mood, the Fürstenstube under its vaults is the quieter, more formal room, and the HacklBar is an easy spot for a casual beer.

Next door, the Hacklberger Biergarten opens in the warm season, shaded by old trees and busy from late morning into the summer evenings. In beer-garden weather this is the better seat; outside it, the indoor rooms are the whole show.

Reservations are taken by phone only, on +49 (0)851 5 83 82, which matters for groups and for the larger rooms used for celebrations.

Löwenbrauerei Passau: The Stockbauer Brewery

Löwenbrauerei Passau, formally the Bayerische Löwenbrauerei Franz Stockbauer AG, sits at Franz-Stockbauer-Weg 13, 94032 Passau, and has brewed for more than 150 years from its base in the Three Rivers city. The brewery describes its range as regularly awarded and brewed from Bavarian raw materials.

The company is unusual in its ownership: the Franz and Maria Stockbauer foundation holds 97 percent of the brewery and funds support for people in the region. That structure sits behind the brand rather than in the glass, but it explains why the brewery presents itself as a civic institution as much as a business.

The brewery publishes its beer range and a fanshop online. It does not publish a visitor program, so plan on drinking Löwenbrauerei beer in town rather than at the brewery itself.

Hacklberg or Löwenbrauerei: Which to Pick

With one evening in Passau, choose the Hacklberger Bräustüberl. It is the only one of the two breweries with a public room where you can order its beer alongside a full Bavarian menu, and the address is central at Bräuhausplatz.

Löwenbrauerei is the choice for a different reason: you want to seek out its beers on menus around the city and compare them with Hacklberger. The brewery is not set up as a place to visit, so the experience is the beer itself, not a room.

If you are building a longer food plan around the beer, the best restaurants in Passau is the place to start, and a Löwenbrauerei beer ordered there is a sensible second act after a Hacklberger lunch.

Pairing Passau Beer With Food

The brewery taproom handles the pairing for you: roast pork with dark-beer gravy is the natural companion to Hacklberger beer served on the premises. The menu's weekday rhythm, with a changing dish each day, keeps repeat lunches varied.

Outside the Bräustüberl, Passau's other Wirtshäuser and inns serve regional beer with their own cooking, which is the usual way to try Löwenbrauerei. The best restaurants in Passau lists those addresses, useful context when you are choosing a room rather than a brand.

If the beer is an aperitif rather than the meal, the cafés in Passau are the better fit for the rest of the afternoon. Keep the beer stop to lunch or early evening and the day still has room for the city.

A Simple Passau Beer Plan

The cleanest plan is lunch at the Bräustüberl: arrive between 11:00 and 13:30 on a Tuesday to Sunday, order the day's dish and a Hacklberger, and you have had the city's beer in its own house. Monday does not work, because the inn is closed.

In warm weather, shift the beer to the Hacklberger Biergarten next door and eat lighter, then take a Löwenbrauerei beer somewhere in town later if you want the comparison. The beer garden serves from late morning into the summer evening, which makes it the flexible option when your arrival time slips.

For a sit-down dinner with a local beer and more choice than an inn lunch, the city's best restaurants are worth scanning before you commit, and Passau food explains the dishes you will meet on those menus.

Lunch at the Bräustüberl or a Löwenbrauerei Beer in Town?

Pick the Hacklberger Bräustüberl if you want one place that settles both the beer and the meal: it is the city's brewery taproom, central on Bräuhausplatz, and open Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 with Monday closed. The midday window of 11:00 to 13:30 is the part that decides your schedule.

Pick Löwenbrauerei if you would rather hunt the beer across town than sit in a brewery room; its beers appear on menus around the city, and the brewery is not set up as a visit. Either way, one evening in Passau is enough for a proper local beer, and the best restaurants in Passau fills in the rest of the meal.