The claim
A towering half-timbered Renaissance inn on Miltenberg's main street, Zum Riesen has hosted travellers on the Main for more than six centuries. The present building went up in 1590 on the site of a Gothic inn recorded in 1411. Today the local Faust brewery runs the taproom, pouring its beers beneath carved beams and painted ceilings.
What the records show
The house calls itself Germany's oldest inn and dates itself to 1158, the year it says Emperor Barbarossa lodged here. Its own history page traces that to an 1865 pamphlet by Dr Ph. Madler, which reported the Hof zum Riesen known from documents by the mid-twelfth century, and adds that the records Madler worked from no longer survive — nor do those behind the royal visits of 1314 and 1368. What survives is the Miltenberg court book of 1411, naming Conrad Trestram as the Riesen-Wirt. The town itself is first documented in 1226. The Bavarian heritage register dendro-dates the standing frame to 1590 and an adjoining range to 1481/82, so no fabric approaches 1158. The princes'-hostelry title is itself old: the council voted Jost Virnhaber a hundred oak trunks in 1589 because the house was a Fürstenherberge.
| Year | What | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1158 | Claimed founding | The pub |
| c.1590 | Present building | Inscribed 1590 on the gable oriel and tree-ring dated, per the Bavarian monument list |
| 1411 | First record of a drinking house here | Bayerische Denkmalliste |
What to look for inside
- Innkeeper Conrad Trestram recorded in 1411
- Timber frame built 1590 by Jakob Stoer
- A range to the south-west tree-ring dated 1481/82, and another framed in the last quarter of the 15th century
- The 1158 comes from a pamphlet by Ph. Madler, catalogued from 1871
- Beer from Miltenberg's Brauerei Faust
Visiting
Gasthaus Zum Riesen is in Miltenberg, Germany, at Hauptstraße 99, 63897 Miltenberg. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
- de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zum_Riesen_(Miltenberg)
- www.riesen-miltenberg.de/
- riesen-miltenberg.de/geschichtedesriesen/
- www.geodaten.bayern.de/denkmal_static_data/externe_denkmalliste/pdf/denkmalliste_merge_676139.pdf
- de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miltenberg
- opac.k10plus.de/DB=2.1/PPNSET?PPN=38735266X
- pages.destination.one/de/miltenberg/streaming/detail/Gastro/g_100013987/gasthaus-zum-riesen
Then and now
Photographed about 1960, and today. Photographed for the Baden-Wurttemberg state archive in September 1960.
Photo: Willy Pragher · licence
Photo: Jörg Braukmann · licenceKnow something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
Run this pub? There is a badge for it
Free to put on your own site, no permission needed. It shows what the pub claims and what the records support, and it changes when the data does.
How to use it, and how to change what it says — if you have a document we have not seen, we would like to read it.
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