The Mathäser May Festival with 4000 liters of free beer at Schyrenplatz announced for this Saturday is canceled. This was announced on Friday afternoon by the organizing Meta Brew Society, which has held the licensing rights to the Mathäser Bräu brand since last fall and wanted to use the festival to promote the brewery’s comeback on the Munich market.
The cancellation was made on the advice of the police and district inspectorate, explained Marcus Büttner, the co-founder of the company based in Naila (Upper Franconia): Because on Saturday the third division soccer team TSV 1860 Munich played its last against Arminia Bielefeld in the nearby stadium on Grünwalder Straße At the home game, the police saw a great potential for riots.
Of course, neither TSV 1860 nor the Munich police know anything about the potential danger in this game. A spokeswoman there simply admitted that it “could get tricky” if the Sechzger fans passed so much free beer on the way to and from the stadium. She pointed out on Friday that the organizers had canceled the festival on their own initiative after it turned out that it had originally only been registered and approved for 100 people by the responsible district inspectorate.
The operator of the kiosk at the Wittelsbacher Bridge was responsible for this, Büttner explained: They originally wanted to celebrate together with the oldest stand in Munich, which has been around for almost 180 years. Büttner continued, we are currently in discussions with the district inspectorate about a rescheduled date for the free beer event. If necessary, the kegs delivered are served at the Munich Cowboys football games, whose sponsor is the old-new Mathäser Bräu.