The original trade and traffic route connecting Freising, Au i.d. Hallertau and Abensberg, in its basic form, dates back as far as the early 12th century. If historic sources are to be believed, until 1664 this route was the only major traffic link connecting Munich and Regensburg. As such, the route became increasingly valuable both to the region’s numerous trade and business connections and notably to the bishops’ customs revenues, considering how easy the route had made it for the subjects to haul their duties and tributes to the Freising Chapter. But the route was not only a blessing: during the Thirty Years' War and the bad times to follow, riffraff and looters found their way through today’s Hallertau to loot and plunder the inhabitants’ villages. In 1850 the Freising District Office took responsibility of the route, and as early as 1851 the first stage coach embarked on its regular tours. At the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany, the route, meanwhile known as Federal Highway B 301, went under public ownership. However, the road was in such bad shape at the time that it was nicknamed “washboard road” by the US occupation troops while the BMW works were using it as a “make-or-break route” for testing new motorcycle types.

Thanks to the establishment of a privately-financed “Joint Venture for the Improvement of Federal Highway 301 (Hops Route)” the road was finally developed and upgraded in the years between 1952 and 1958. Incidentally, the term “Hops Route” was first coined in 1951, during the course of the preliminaries eventually leading to the foundation of this beneficial association. Considering that Federal Highway B 301 was the most important connecting link of the entire hops growing area (which, yielding some 50 million German marks in tax receipts, ranked among the premier taxpayers of the entire Federal Republic), the Joint Venture in December 1955 motioned the Federal Government in Bonn to bestow the official title of “German Hops Route” on B 301. When the motion was turned down as not being “folkloric enough”, the communities situated along the highway were granted the option to use that name on their town signs at their own discretion. As most communities opted in favour, the name stuck. To this date the German Hops Route, which measures a total of 49 kilometres in length, continues to function as an important arterial road of the Hallertau hops country. Winding past seemingly never-ending hops gardens, old hop-picking farmyards, and historic sites, the route seems to breathe history and to bring back the feel of times long past. Even today, the history of the grand hop picking era continues to reverberate softly through the hops gardens.