Two posts in a row about beer. I swear I don't just travel to drink. Well, not always anyway.
Sometimes when we travel, we find out what is on the other side of the city or state or country or ocean or world isn't quite what we thought it would be. Travel is, at its heart, an exercise in discovery with no guaranteed outcomes. It's all personal and we have to go to find out for ourselves what it's like away from home. On our best trips, we experience something more amazing than we could ever imagine. In the worst of these situations, we hope we learn and don't repeat our mistakes.
And then sometimes we may end up going back to Germany to find the exact same thing that disappointed us in the first place. Some of us may learn slower than others.
And then sometimes we may end up going back to Germany to find the exact same thing that disappointed us in the first place. Some of us may learn slower than others.
On the very first trip I took right after I started this blog in 2013, I made my very first trip to Germany. Or more precisely, Bavaria, the epicenter of Germany's grand beer brewing tradition. Sure, there was some history and some nature and some food on the agenda but let's be honest, it was mostly about the beer. Again, I swear I don't just travel to drink.
I didn't like it so much. Not Germany. Or Bavaria. They were fine. I mean the beer. I just didn't like it much at all. I found it bland, unimaginative and, worst of all, consistently available with very little to no other choice. I was shocked. Here we are in one of the world's great brewing spots and we are struggling to find something with taste that we could actually appreciate drinking. If there was any silver lining to this lesson, the food in Bavaria was fantastic. We may have been disappointed by the beer, but not by what we ate. Surprise on both counts. If I came home with one lesson from that trip, it was that German beer was not worth traveling for.
Fast forward five years and I've booked a flight and a couple of nights hotel in Cologne, Germany on the end of a week or so in the United Kingdom. Why am I visiting Cologne? Well, basically to see the cathedral and drink beer. Yes, I went back to Germany to drink German beer. What am I thinking? I'm thinking beer in Cologne is better than beer in Munich and there's only one way to find out.
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| Bottles of Sion Kölsch in the refrigerator in our hotel lobby with the silhouette of the Cathedral on the label. |
In my defense here, I didn't go to Cologne just to drink beer. I went to Cologne to drink kölsch, and kölsch is not Bavarian-style beer. And if there's a traditional style of German beer that I like, it's kölsch. When I first got the notion of spending a day in Cologne I imagined a bright sunny summer or fall day with me sitting in a cafe along the Rhine River with a full glass of delicious kölsch gazing with wonder at the city's Dom, or Cathedral. Sounds pretty cool, right? And I figured all I would need was a single day. Then I could go home happy.
So what's so special about kölsch? Well, of course I have something to say about that.
So what's so special about kölsch? Well, of course I have something to say about that.
Elsewhere in this blog, I've written about what I consider the three great brewing traditions in the world. The Belgian and English brewing traditions are largely ale-based (meaning top-fermenting yeast that produces foam on the top of the brew while it converts sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide) while the German brewing tradition is largely lager-based (meaning bottom fermenting yeast). Ale yeast generally works at milder to warmer temperatures; lager yeast generally works at colder temperatures.
For most of all recorded brewing history, most beer brewed in the world was either brewed as an ale or a lager with the appropriate and corresponding yeast and fermentation conditions. Most beer except the beer in western Germany, that is, where folks brewed beer using top-fermenting ale yeast but after the initial fermentation stored it below ground in colder cellars to age (or lager). In Cologne where this process started, they eventually called this beer kölsch. It is one of only two types of beer in the world that is traditionally brewed this way. The other is altbier which is native to Düsseldorf, Germany just about 25 miles from Cologne. There's a connection but I won't go into that here.
For most of all recorded brewing history, most beer brewed in the world was either brewed as an ale or a lager with the appropriate and corresponding yeast and fermentation conditions. Most beer except the beer in western Germany, that is, where folks brewed beer using top-fermenting ale yeast but after the initial fermentation stored it below ground in colder cellars to age (or lager). In Cologne where this process started, they eventually called this beer kölsch. It is one of only two types of beer in the world that is traditionally brewed this way. The other is altbier which is native to Düsseldorf, Germany just about 25 miles from Cologne. There's a connection but I won't go into that here.
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| Very happy people with a 5 liter tower of kölsch at Brauhaus Sünner im Walfisch. With 5 liters, I'd be happy too. |
From there, folks just started leaving cooked grain and water mixtures out exposed to the open air and by magic they just turned into beer. It was only later when yeasts were discovered that brewers really started to refine and control how they made their product. Beer producing nations stuck to their traditional styles for centuries. Eventually, like today, brewers began experimenting and hybridizing all sorts of different brewing traditions. You can now find all sorts of different varieties of beer in locations very far from each style's origin. I guess that's probably a good thing. But there's a lot of value for me in drinking beer types where they were invented. Thus...Cologne.
So what does all this top fermenting / cold cellaring do to a beer? Well, the kölsch beer that is produced and consumed in Cologne is a straw colored, lightly hopped, easy drinking session beer. It's likely very similar to what most people think of when they think about having a mass produced American beer but the ale yeast used in the production should give the beer a softer and fruitier finish. In its best versions, it's absolutely delicious to drink, particularly as a refreshing beer on a summer day.
Despite all that history, people haven't been drinking beer with the kölsch name for all that long. The Sünner brewery in Cologne was the first to use that name in 1918 to describe a beer they had been serving at that point for the prior 12 years. These days, the name kölsch is supposed to be confined to beers of that style brewed in Cologne. Or so said 24 brewers in that city in 1986. The rest of the world seems to have not noticed that much.
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| Filling the kölsch glasses at Brauerei Päffgen. |
All that clear? Good. No more history, I promise. For this post.
There is a wonderful romanticism to drinking beer in Germany. In Munich and Bavaria, it's the idea of sitting in the summer or fall under canopies of chestnut trees drinking oversized mugs of helles or dunkles or weissbier and talking with friends while munching on a fresh pretzel with spiced cream cheese and raw onions. Indeed one of my favorite memories from that 2013 trip was sitting in the lower beer garden at Andechs Abbey doing just what I described above. It was absolutely idyllic. Except for what we were drinking, which had about no taste whatsoever.
There is a wonderful romanticism to drinking beer in Germany. In Munich and Bavaria, it's the idea of sitting in the summer or fall under canopies of chestnut trees drinking oversized mugs of helles or dunkles or weissbier and talking with friends while munching on a fresh pretzel with spiced cream cheese and raw onions. Indeed one of my favorite memories from that 2013 trip was sitting in the lower beer garden at Andechs Abbey doing just what I described above. It was absolutely idyllic. Except for what we were drinking, which had about no taste whatsoever.
In Cologne, the joy of beer is related to the ritual associated with the serving and drinking of kölsch. You won't find beer gardens at every brauhaus in the city and you certainly won't find chestnut trees to sit beneath. You also won't find mugs of any sort. Kölsch is not served in mugs; it's served in 200 milliliter glasses (that's about 6-3/4 fluid oz or just more than half a standard bottle or can of American beer). You can only get it in this size. There's no small, medium or large sizes. Just 200 ml.
Doesn't that make for quick drinking? you might ask. Why, yes, it does. And here's where the ritual comes in. The servers are constantly prowling the floor of the brauhaus with trays of kölsch to replenish the thirsty drinker's supply of beer. And by trays, I mean specially designed circular vessels with a central handle (for easy carrying) and about a dozen or so spots to hold a 200 ml glass of sweet kölsch. These glasses are filled directly from the keg by the waiter or bartender (depending on the establishment) and are run right out into circulation to keep their thirsty customers quenched.
There are a couple of other finer points to this ritual that make it even better. Don't know how to order a glass of kölsch? Don't worry, you will typically not have to order. You will just get a glass popped down in front of you on a coaster and marked with a hash in pencil. Each hash marks a beer served. Glass empty? Don't worry about that, either. The next time your server comes by your table, you'll get a fresh one. You won't have to order anything at all. When you have had your fill (or just want a rest), just take a coaster off the table and leave it on top of your glass. That means you are done. Or done for now. All of this is what I wanted in Cologne and I wanted the beer to taste amazing.
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| More kölsch? Why yes, don't mind if I do. Got to keep the customer satisfied. Brauerei zur Malzmühle. |
Earlier in this post I described my ideal Cologne experience, as imagined before I actually visited the city. There were a few problems with that dream, the first one being (as I have already described) that kölsch is not served in regular sized glasses. There would be no leisurely nursing a glass of beer in Cologne for really very long at all. It's more of a shooter experience. Not that there's necessarily anything fundamentally wrong with that.
I also wasn't going to be drinking beer in a cafe along the banks of the Rhine while checking out the Cathedral from afar. Two reasons for that: (1) there didn't seem to be any cafes along the banks of the river and (2) the Cathedral also isn't on the river. I didn't know either of those things. Now that I've been there, I do.
So with all of that wanderlust killed...was the beer in Cologne really that much better than the beer in Munich? Unfortunately, the answer is no, it is not. I told you I was a slow learner.
So of course the real truth is not that black and white, right? Did we find some beer worth drinking in Cologne? Sure we did. Did we find some beer I'd be happy to never have again? Yep, we got that too. There are a good number of breweries in Cologne and we managed to make our way to four different brauhauses and find time to drink a couple of bottles of kölsch in our less than two days in town. I can tell you are impressed with how thorough I'm trying to be about this subject.
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| The sign for the Sünner brauhaus on Salzgasse near the west bank of the Rhine. |
I won't waste a whole lot of words on the kölsch I didn't find appealing but in the interest of public safety, I feel it's my moral responsibility to warn other unsuspecting beer fans off the stuff. The kölsch on the top of my list prior to my setting foot in Cologne was Päffgen. I'd read that their brew was a little hoppier than others you might find in the city so we made our way out to their brewery on the west side of the altstadt (or old city) on our second night in town. I was honestly intrigued by the concept of hoppy kölsch and I have to say after downing three or four with my schnitzel at Brauerei Päffgen I still am intrigued because I still haven't tasted any. The only thing worse than the beer at Päffgen was the service.
We had a little better luck at Pfaffen (I didn't intend to find similarly named establishments, although honestly when I entered this place I was looking for Päffgen) just a bit south of the Cathedral, although quite frankly, it may have been the exact same beer served under a different name. There was a note on the coasters in the place about Pfaffen serving Päffgen beer, although it was in German so I really don't know what it says exactly. This was the first kölsch we had a couple of hours after landing in Cologne and I was disappointed in something I'd waited so long to drink in its city of origin. If it was the exact same beer, maybe the service made it taste better.
On the bottle side of things, if you find yourself in a Cologne convenience store facing a choice between a €1,10 bottle of Früh and a €1,10 bottle of Sion, I'd go with the Sion. I'm not saying Sion is great but Früh was honestly the worst kölsch I had in Germany (or anywhere else for that matter). No beer with that kind of a bite or kick is worth drinking very much. I would drink Sion again willingly although maybe not if there was a good amount of choice. Sion vs. Früh or Miller Lite? I'll go with the Sion.
And yes, pretty much all kölsch is priced the same. Head to a corner market and you'll find everything for €1,10. Spend time brauhaus hopping and you'll be investing in a lot (and I do mean a lot) of €1,90 200 ml glasses of straw colored beer. Water by the way is €2,50 in most places. Beer is cheaper than water. Finally I find a place where beer is cheaper than water and it ends up not being wonderful. The irony.
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| Brauerei Sünner im Walfisch. The best atmosphere of any brauhaus we visited in Cologne. |
There were a couple of places I'd go back to. I thought the kölsch at Brauerei zur Mahlzmühle (the top photograph of this post) just south of the light rail tracks past the Alter Markt was light and pleasant tasting. I could tell I was drinking beer a little when I was about 2-1/2 tiny glasses of beer into my lunchtime drinking with food session (also known as lunch). I also found the lower level of carbonation (than American beers that is) conducive to some heavy session drinking, although I stopped at four or maybe five. I guess Bill Clinton was here in 1999; it's never a bad thing to follow in Bill's footsteps food- or beer-wise I guess.
I can't necessarily recommend the food at Malzmühle although I did manage to exorcise a regret from five years ago. I have few regrets in life or about my travels but I do have a few and one is that when I was in Munich I chickened out on eating one of their famous local dishes (pork knuckle). I was determined on my return trip to Germany not to do that and sampled the local specialty called Himmel un Ääd (or Heaven and Earth) which is apple (the heaven) with potatoes (the Earth) served along with several slices of black pudding or blood sausage. It wasn't terrible but I won't be having it again. No regrets, though.
Ask me to go kölsch drinking at Brauerei zur Malzmühle and I'm in! I may stop for a doner kebab or curry wurst on the way but I'll be there and be good for at least five or seven or nine 200 ml glasses.
Ask me if I'd rather go somewhere else, though, and I'll respond in the affirmative. We stopped into the Brauhaus Sünner am Walfisch for a couple of glasses of afternoon kölsch and we should have stayed longer. We found Sünner (which happens to be the oldest brewery still around in the city and the originators of the kölsch name) down a side street or alley just off the Alter Markt south of the Cathedral.
If there's a big difference in quality between Sünner's kölsch and the Mühlen Kölsch I helped down my Heaven and Earth with, I couldn't articulate what it is. But it was a smooth drinking beer with a pleasant taste which I think would go down great in summer in Cologne or anywhere else. The brauhaus is small but well organized, with a main dining room and a small (and I do mean like holding 10 people small) bar area to the right of the main door as you step inside. The service at Sünner was better than we received anywhere else so combine that with the intimate interior and the good tasting beer (which comes in towers up to 5 liters high!!!) and you have the place I'd rather go back to in Cologne than any other place we drank.
After two trips to Germany to drink beer, I hope I have learned my lesson. I've been pretty down on kölsch in this post just like I was about Bavarian beer five years ago. It's honestly not all that bad. You just have to work hard and get through all the unpleasant beers to find something you really like. I'd rather go drink beer someplace with a hit rate greater than one in three (or less). Call me picky I guess.
I'm glad I went to Cologne. The city is gorgeous, especially the squares with cafe after cafe lining what seems like all four sides. I'm just not longing to go back any time soon either to drink the beer or just be in Germany. I couldn't know that if I never went. Now I do. Germany's probably fully checked on my list now. And this time without the great food.
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| Yes, they have coasters with Bill Clinton on them at Brauerei zur Malzmühle. |
How We Did It
There are various ways to get to Cologne. We flew into Düsseldorf Airport and took a train south then flew out of Cologne/Bonn Airport. The train service from Cologne/Bonn is super easy and super quick (just 14 minutes). It's also super inexpensive at €2,90. Coming from Düsseldorf isn't a whole lot more cost but the train ride takes about 40 minutes.
It isn't very difficult to find kölsch once you are in the city. Just walk south from the Dom or Cathedral down through the Alter Markt or Heumarkt and you'll find cafe after cafe where you can find the stuff. Some are brauereis or brauhauses owned by the various brewers of kölsch still resident in the city and others are independently owned restaurants.
Brauerei zur Malzmühle is located south of the Alter Markt at Heumarkt 6. They are open at 11:30 am daily and serve until midnight on weeknights (Monday through Thursday); 1:30 am Friday and Saturday and just 11 pm on Sundays. They have a website in English. I didn't find it very helpful. They also have a hotel next door.
Brauhaus Sünner am Walfisch is just east of the Alter Markt at Salzgasse 13. They have both indoor and outdoor seating areas and are open from noon to midnight every day. Look for the sign of the whale and hops if you are approaching from the north. Their website is in German and so proved of little use to me. Walking in worked just fine.
Choose to go anywhere else and you are on your own. I'd love to hear if anyone out there found something else worth drinking.
There are various ways to get to Cologne. We flew into Düsseldorf Airport and took a train south then flew out of Cologne/Bonn Airport. The train service from Cologne/Bonn is super easy and super quick (just 14 minutes). It's also super inexpensive at €2,90. Coming from Düsseldorf isn't a whole lot more cost but the train ride takes about 40 minutes.
It isn't very difficult to find kölsch once you are in the city. Just walk south from the Dom or Cathedral down through the Alter Markt or Heumarkt and you'll find cafe after cafe where you can find the stuff. Some are brauereis or brauhauses owned by the various brewers of kölsch still resident in the city and others are independently owned restaurants.
Brauerei zur Malzmühle is located south of the Alter Markt at Heumarkt 6. They are open at 11:30 am daily and serve until midnight on weeknights (Monday through Thursday); 1:30 am Friday and Saturday and just 11 pm on Sundays. They have a website in English. I didn't find it very helpful. They also have a hotel next door.
Brauhaus Sünner am Walfisch is just east of the Alter Markt at Salzgasse 13. They have both indoor and outdoor seating areas and are open from noon to midnight every day. Look for the sign of the whale and hops if you are approaching from the north. Their website is in German and so proved of little use to me. Walking in worked just fine.
Choose to go anywhere else and you are on your own. I'd love to hear if anyone out there found something else worth drinking.
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