Which brewery still uses traditional wooden barrels at Oktoberfest?

Augustiner is the brewery that still uses traditional wooden barrels at Oktoberfest.

Augustiner is the only Munich brewery that continues delivering its Oktoberfest beer in wooden barrels. The practice is most visible in the Augustiner-Festhalle, where the beer is associated with a deliberately traditional presentation rather than only modern metal storage and dispensing systems.

Augustiner’s Oktoberfest presence has a long history. A picture records an Augustiner beer stall at the festival in 1867, and the brewery’s first “beer castle” appeared in 1903. The Augustiner-Festhalle itself was first erected in 1926; its distinctive tower was later restored in 2010 for the festival’s 200th anniversary.

The wording can cause a small misunderstanding: Augustiner is not the only beer served from a wooden barrel anywhere at the festival in every possible context, but it is the brewery specifically identified with continuing the wooden-barrel tradition. Its Oktoberfest beer and Edelstoff are noted for this method. The brewery is also one of the six officially permitted Munich Oktoberfest brewers, alongside Hacker-Pschorr, Hofbräu, Löwenbräu, Paulaner and Spaten.