My Cologne Week In Beers 09.06.23

Despite being a lover of travel and beer, I have never previously made it to Germany, a country with a brewing history that starts back when years were still in the triple digits.

Our first stop in Deutschland is Cologne (Köln) which Katie and I stopped at for a week for equal parts work, Bourdain endorsements and kölsch, the beer named for the town. Kölsch is close to the only beer drunk in Cologne, served in small glasses (called ‘stanges’) that are frequently and methodically replaced.

When we arrived in Cologne on Friday 09.06.23, after checking into our AirBnb Katie and I went straight out for kölsch at a pub on our street called Wirsthaus Spitz. Alongside our Vienna style veal schnitzel we enjoyed several stanges of Gaffel, one of the most widely available kölschs in Cologne.

“Why did you come to Köln?” “For the kölsch!” “No, really, why?”

Like most kölsch, Gaffel is crisp, balanced, refreshing and dangerously moreish. The ABV is around 4% making it ideal to slam down, emphatically fresh, cold and a friend to mountains of German cuisine.

The next day was Saturday and the day I was filming my segment for the travel show Katie and I are making. Because I want you to watch it when it comes out I will keep it deliberately vague but we enjoyed Päfgan kölsch which had all of those easy going kölsch characteristics but with a nice woody, aged subtlety.

At a very touristy and inexplicably Hawaiian bar on the Rhine I drank a miscellaneous kölsch that was in a larger 300ml glass that warmed up in a matter of seconds. Luckily, I got the worst kölsch of the trip out of the way early.

Even at home you gotta drink it outta the stange.

Later I enjoyed some bottled Reissdorf kölsch while watching the footy. Reissdorf is a favourite amongst German beer lovers or at least amongst those that don’t regard kölsch as a ‘half beer’ enjoyed only by Kölners. It was pleasant and comforting.

On Sunday and Monday we weren’t shooting so I decided to have two beer free days to catch up on work. It might seem crazy to go one day, let alone two consecutive ones, not drinking beer in Germany but there is still a lot of professional beer drinking to be done on this trip and I need to pace myself, especially considering as I did not manage a beer free day in either stop in Belgium.

Tuesday was the day we filmed Katie’s segment so I will keep the details similarly vague. With lunch we tried Peter’s kölsch which seemed a bit sweeter than the others and despite being delicious wasn’t my favourite of the trip. For dinner we went to the Gaffel brauhaus by the iconic Köln Dom where we polished off some more of their great kölsch with an appropriately German feast.

To continue the vagueness, I will not tell you which venue this was taken at!

On Wednesday I chucked the rule book into the bin and we got on the train for a 25 minute trip to Dusseldorf. Despite the small distance between the two Rhine hugging cities, Dusseldorf does not do kölsch, exclusively favouring altbier, a bronze coloured lager with a name that literally translates to ‘old beer’ due to it’s long history of brewing.

It was a very dangerous day to be an altbier. Video proof.

In the Dusseldorf old town (altstad) we enjoyed altbier at Brauerei zum Schlüssel where the bartender dropped two small glasses of alt at our table without even checking first in what may be the best customer service I’ve ever received. The beer (which is brewed on premises) tasted like caramel, biscuits, chop chip cookies, Sundays and crosswords. Incredibly comforting. Like kölsch, it is replaced regularly to ensure it is always fresh and cold, very important factors on a hot day.

Later we walked down to a Rhine-side restaurant where I had a half litre of the stuff but nothing is as good as having it constantly cold and fresh at the place it is brewed.

Thursday was our final day in Cologne so we went to Früh Brauhaus which came highly recommended by other beer tragics. Perhaps not the most flavoursome of the local brewers, Früh is still delightful and the venue is unmissable for anyone visiting Cologne.

At some point I also reviewed Schreckenskammer Kölsch which you can see my full thoughts on here.

After that we ended up back where we started at Wirsthaus Spitz where we split another big schnitzel, this time pork with black beer sauce, quite possibly the best sauce that has ever graced a schnitzel that has suffered the indignity of passing through my beardy lips.

Couldn’t take a better photo, just wanted to tuck into it straight away.

We knocked back our last kölsch, Gaffel again, although I couldn’t help but notice it didn’t taste as good as I remembered, possibly due to being outperformed by Früh or by the fresh Gaffel earlier in the week.

Realising I had only drank local for a week I drank a beer with my name on it and watched the sun set on the glorious terrace one last time.

It’s no schnitzel but it’s pretty beautiful.