Sunday, November 19, 2006

My First Days in Cologne

I have made it through my travels and reached Cologne Germany. So I am working on making it through my first weekend and thought I'd give an update on what I have been doing. Obviously here in Cologne there is one big thing to partake in and that is of course Kolsch.
In reality Kolsch means anything that comes from Koln (Cologne). Which means there is a Kolsch dialect, Kolsch food, Kolsch style, and of course Kolsch Beer. Kolsch beer is a warm fermenting beer like an ale, instead of lagered as many believe. This misconception is due to the fact that Kolsch looks so much like a Pilsner in its light golden color, nice white head, and crisp clean taste. Kolsch's taste profile has a suprising range from crisp, clean, and malty to slightly hoppy with sweet fruity characteristics, and everythnig in between. Its a great beer to enjoy, as it weighs in at around 4.6 to 4.8 % and is served in 0.2L or 0.3 L. In otherwords you can have many beers and not feel all that bad afterwards.
In my short time here I have had the opportunity to try quite a few Kolsch: Sion, Gilden, Gaffel, Paffgen, Pfaffel, and Dom. Most were really great, but they were all very different. In the next few weeks I'll do as many individual write ups on these as I can. I'll include the brew house experience as well since that is a big part of the Kolsch Beer Experience. And for Jay, I am hoping to make it up to Dusseldorf in the next couple of weeks for some AltBier.

1 comment:

David said...

Make sure to keep an accurate list for those of us that follow...