Sober Curious in Munich: A Guide for Expats

Alcohol in Munich is infrastructure. It costs less than a bus ticket, sits at every supermarket entrance, and anchors every major cultural event the city produces. Oktoberfest alone draws seven million people and six million liters of beer in two weeks. The taxation has not caught up with the reality; the social normalization runs very deep, and none of this is changing anytime soon. That is the baseline. Now try being sober curious inside it.

The city that shifted

Munich has changed considerably in the last five years. Brexit redirected a wave of English-speaking professionals here. Then came the tech companies — Google, Apple, Microsoft, several fast-growing scale-ups — and with them a substantial international workforce that is still arriving. The expat population has grown; the English-speaking social scene has grown with it, and the city now has more people than ever trying to build a life from scratch.

Germans are not unfriendly. They are deliberate. Trust is extended slowly, steadily, on a timeline they set. Friendships here are built over years. For expats used to faster social metabolisms, this takes adjustment after an initial shock. And while the adjustment is underway, alcohol is everywhere, affordable, and expected.

What actually helps

Community is the practical answer.

Some places to start: alcohol-free communities for expats in Munich, among them High Sobriety Club, which exists precisely for this. Hiking groups and running clubs, the various outdoors communities. Reading groups. The Englischer Garten, which functions as Munich’s most reliably democratic social space. Glockenbach and the Uni quarter are the most expat-porous neighborhoods in the city; it's easier to find your people.

Start smaller if large groups feel like too much. A few people around a table is enough.

On belonging

Socializing in a foreign country is hard. Doing it while trying to be more intentional about alcohol is harder still. Part of that difficulty is logistical: where do you go? What do you do? Part of it is about somewhere else: the worry that stepping back from drinking means stepping back from being accepted.

Alcohol works as a social lubricant right up until the point where it is the only thing holding a social life together. Most people who start asking questions about their drinking already sense this.

Stay Sober // Stay Cool.

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Monica Iordache is a sober coach based in Munich, offering English-speaking sober coaching sessions online and in person. If you are navigating this, explore what working together looks like at highsobriety.club.