Warner - Kölsch: history, brewing techniques, recipes

Klsch is the only language that one can also drink.

(Translated from the German)

Anonymous

If you ask any knowledgeable beer drinker what country is best known for its lager beers, chances are Germany will be the answer. Likewise, if you ask that same person what the beer capital of Germany is, Munich will probably be the response. Twelve years ago, I would have boldly responded to those questions in the same manner. At that time, I was in Munich for a second visit to complete a degree at a brewing school, and I thought that German brewing was all about Bavarias lagers and wheat beers. Sure, I had tried some of Germanys more obscure styles, such as Berliner weiss and alt, but why would anyone need to look any further than Bavaria to discover a wide array of beer styles and brands with which it would take the better part of a lifetime to become intimately familiar?

I remember being in one of my favorite student pubs when I found out about Klsch. The pub manager was a Canadian-German with whom I had become friends, and he told me to try this new beer he had on tap. Since the vast majority of pubs and restaurants in Bavaria are controlled by large and small local breweries, it was always a pleasure to try something new at the independent pubs. When Fred poured me the glass of Klsch, I said, Ill order a full-sized one, and he replied that that was the full pour. The glass this beer was served in looked like a thimble next to the half-liter glasses that the Bavarians were using to drink helles and weissbier. Fred told me that these were the glasses he had received from the distributor for this particular beer. Being more knowledgeable than I was, Fred also told me that this was how it was done in Cologne.

Very well then, time to try the beer. The first thing that struck me was the thick, rocky head crowning the light-golden beer. Immediately I thought of helles and Pilsner, but when I tried the beer it seemed to be less malty than a helles and less bitter than a Pilsner. It also seemed to have a slightly more fruity character than either. It was soft and well balanced, with a relatively light body compared to the big beers of Bavaria. It was a wonderful surprise, and Fred had unknowingly made me a more frequent visitor to his pub.

The real experience with Klsch was yet to come, however. At Freds student pub all I knew about Klsch was that it was a great, pale beer that was extremely enjoyable and easy to drink. On later visits to Cologne I would realize that Klsch was actually an ale. What I also came to realize was that Klsch was unique to Cologne and its neighboring townships and that it was protected by an appellation.

I was also about to find out more about the Klsch culture. Klsch is much more than just a beer style. It is a word for the German dialect spoken in Cologne and is used as an adjective to describe anything that has to do with Cologne, in much the same way that German is used to describe anything having to do with Germany. I also found out that the brewery did not send Fred some reject or close-out glassware with the kegs he ordered. The cylindrical, thin-walled, seven-ounce glasses were standard in every pub in Cologne. The two-centiliter glass was the only size in which my Klsch was served. It seemed odd at first, but after a while I came to enjoy it. Besides, you would sound like quite the hero back in Bavaria if you said you had drunk 15 beers in an evening, all the while knowing that the equivalent volume of beer would have amounted to three mugs in the Munich beer garden!

The pubs themselves were also vastly different from the ones in Munich. Whereas in Munich the stereotype is the buxom waitress carrying several large mugs of beer in her arms, in Cologne waiters wearing blue aprons efficiently dispense the tiny glasses of beer from custom-formed serving trays. Klsch pubs can be large, but if you are looking for the beer-hall type of setting, youre probably better off in Bavaria.