Tuesday 9 March 2010

BeerHereUk's Trip to Cologne!



Last week BeerHere.co.uk had lovely three day break in the City of Cologne.
'What a wonderful opportunity' we thought to sample some of Germany's finest Kolsch beers brewed by some of the 24 breweries situated in and around the historic city.

Amongst the many delicious beers we tried, here are a few names that spring to mind: Paffgan Kolsch, Gilden Kolsch, Muhlen Kolsch and Gaffel Kolsch (our favourite, but we'll come to that later).

On the final night we visited Cologne's legendary pub Haxenhaus. Founded in 1231 Haxenhaus is the oldest pub in Cologne. When it was first built the pub was a home for hiring sailors. Now it is one of Cologne's finest medieval public houses offering great authentic beer and food!

The best part of our visit to Haxenhaus was the wheel of fortune which is spun once a night.
We had consumed a fair amount of the Gaffel Kolsch they had pouring from the tap and had set up a tab to cover the bill at the end of the night.
When the wheel of fortune is spun, whatever number it lands on applies to the brass numbers tacked to each table around the room. If you are so fortunate for the wheel to land on your table number then all your drinks are free!
The BeerHere team were sitting on table number 31 and lucky for us the wheel of fortune landed on the very same number! So the evening couldn't have worked out any better!

A quick fact: The glasses used for drinking Kolsch are traditionally only 0.2L (just under half a pint). The reason being: it is believed that if you have your kolsch in anything bigger the beer gets too warm and as a result less fresh. If it were served in a pint glass, by the time you had drunk half out it, the remaining half would have lost its freshness!

To see our Cologne youtube video click here.

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