BERLIN -- They were 23,000 strong, brimming into the streets of Munich last Friday night like the foam of a quickly poured beer. They were angry -- hopping mad, you might say -- and by the time they finished they'd washed away their opposition, and doubtless a few thousand brain cells as well.
Thus did the Volk of Bavaria save a 400-year-old tradition from the petty doings of judges and bureaucrats, with an uprising that by yesterday morning had been labeled the "beer revolution."
The issue was beer gardens, or, more precisely, the closing time of one particular beer garden that had drawn the attention of a local judge. Acting on a noise complaint by a handful of neighbors, the judge ruled April 27 that the Waldwirtschaft beer garden, a southern Munich establishment by the banks of the Isar River, had to move its closing time from 11 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., with last call at 9.
In Germany, that's well before the summer sunset, and the ruling went down about as well as a burned Bratwurst. Even more unsettling was the prospect that the precedent would be used by other complainers to force other beer gardens to close before dark.
An apartment dweller near the site of the giant Oktoberfest beer tents had already been emboldened enough to ask that this area also be declared off limits to beer drinking after 9:30 p.m. It was enough to make the crowds under the spreading trees of the beer gardens begin to wonder: Was nothing sacred?
"All of the people said, 'We want our beer gardens, and we don't want a few people telling us we have to go home while it is still sunny and bright,' " said Ursula Seeboeck, president of the Organization for Munich Beer Garden Culture.
"Beer gardens are very important in Bavaria. They have been around for 400 years, from the days when the brewers used to keep the beer cold in underground cellars, with the gardens on top, and for some people in city apartments it's the only place to go and eat and drink outdoors in the summer."
If your idea of a beer garden is a sort of overgrown sidewalk cafe, then you're not thinking in the grand and loud scale of Bavaria. The Waldwirtschaft beer garden, for instance, seats 2,500 people, and that's only after another set of bureaucrats a few years back forced the place to scale down from 5,000.
The 12 largest beer gardens of Munich together can seat 40,000 people, and on a warm summer night you'll find their tables near capacity, topped by towering steins and glasses of one-liter (28 ounces) and half-liter servings. This time of year you might want to swill a Maibock, or, as the weather heats up, a tangy dry Weizen beer.
They're also places where all classes and all walks of life converge. Families come, too, and when the kids get antsy they burn off their energies at the beer garden's Spielplatz, splitting their lips open on the monkey bars while mom and dad swallow another liter.
"I don't understand the whole fuss, because for centuries the beer garden tradition has worked just fine," said Ludwig Hoegenauer, manager of the 5,000-seat Augustinerkeller, one of the city's most famous beer gardens.
"People have lived near beer gardens forever and didn't complain about the noise, so why should they now? Why should thousands of people go to bed earlier just because 10 or 12 people want to?"
That sentiment quickly coalesced into last weekend's revolution. Two weeks ago, organizers began plotting action. And within a week, more than 200,000 people -- about one-sixth of the population of Munich -- had signed petitions against the early closing hours.
By the time of Friday night's demonstration, even the politicians had awakened. Virtually every major political party had a presence at the rally, from the ruling conservative Christian Social Union of Bavarian Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber, to the left-wing Greens ("Beer gardens are a significant moist biotope," declared Green politico Sabine Csampani, tongue firmly in cheek).
Mr. Stoiber won perhaps the biggest cheer of the night with his promise that the Bavarian Parliament will act by June 28 to guarantee 11 p.m. closing hours for all beer gardens.
That, in turn, guaranteed a victory for the beer revolution.
