After almost two and a half years of vacancy, the Inselkammer inn in Siegertsbrunn has been filled with new life. As the Aying brewery confirms, a new host duo is expected to reopen the traditional business, including the beer garden, hall and guest rooms, at the beginning of April. The two, Michael Öchsl and Martin Wanke, continue to focus on regional cuisine. “If the name Inselkammer is on it, you can be sure that it will be plain, Bavarian,” says brewery director Helmut Erdmann. According to him, the search for a tenant had taken a long time because it was “a bit more difficult” in times of Corona. On the other hand, according to Erdmann, “we wanted to make sure that in the second attempt we would find someone from whom you could be sure that you wouldn’t hear anything for the next five to ten years.”
The brewery director is alluding to the youngest tenants, the couple Michaela and Herbert Stetter, who took over the tavern in 2017 but then only stayed for two and a half years. In the fall of 2019, the Aying brewery separated from them – “by mutual agreement”, as it was called at the time. Since then, the brewery has been looking for a landlord for the inn, which opened in 1877 and represents the nucleus of the Inselkammer family’s corporate dynasty, which today is one of the best known in the region. The expectations at the company headquarters in nearby Aying are correspondingly high, which Michael Öchsl and Martin Wanke should now meet.
The Aying brewery has high expectations of the new tenants
“We’re doing a complete restart. Everything that used to be is being pushed aside,” says Öchsl. “We want to turn the inn back into a flagship for the brewery.” The 30-year-old knows the traditional business from his childhood, after all his aunt lived in Höhenkirchen-Siegertsbrunn. Most recently, Öchsle has worked since 2012 as a chef de cuisine in the Wirtshaus am Bavariapark, where his partner Martin Wanke also worked for eleven years.
So now the two are taking over the Inselkammer inn together, which has around 120 seats inside and outside. There are also three guest rooms that have been freshly renovated, according to Öchsle, and the ballroom, in which weddings, celebrations and events are to take place. And then there is the idyllically located beer garden with up to 300 seats, where, according to the landlord, you will only be able to serve yourself. Of course, the beer from the Ayinger brewery is served – from wooden barrels, as Öchsle emphasizes.
An exact opening date has not yet been set. However, they definitely want to open up before Easter, says the landlord. “The house should be raised as a family,” Öchsle promises. Accordingly, the outdoor playground will also be restored. Under the predecessors of Öchsle and Wanke, both the rush and the enthusiasm of the people from Siegertsbrunn were limited in the Inselkammer inn. And yet brewery director Helmut Erdmann is confident about the upcoming reopening: “I’m very optimistic,” he says, “that it will work very well with the two new innkeepers.”