I knew I had to be in Berlin on a certain day in order to catch a flight to Compenhaggen as my plan to get to Iceland to meet some friends.  Therefore I had no idea where I wanted to go and so i decided to let beer decide it for me.  Germany is very regional when it comes to beer and so various cities are famous for various styles of beer as I had already experienced in my previous stops.  Therefore I decided to keep the beer theme going by travelling to Cologne Germany which is famous for it’s Kolsch style beer served in a very specific way.

The bus ride to Cologne passed through Frankfurt and actually took a really long time.  I left in the mid afternoon and did not arrive until the evening.  I messed up my bus booking and ended up at the airport instead of the main station downtown.  I did hear that there were some politics there though.  Apparently there are some laws or rules that only certain companies are allowed to come downtown or the docking fees are expensive or something, so there are very few buses that go downtown due to some sort of monopoly.  Therefore I ended up at the Airport and had to take the train into downtown.  It was no worries, but there were a few tourists from America who were clearly on one of their first every trips because the train station and German language really confused them despite it being pretty clear.  I arrived downtown and made it to my hostel with no issues.  It was pretty late already so I didn’t want to go out.  Luckily there was a group og guys hanging out in the common area.  Upon talking to them a bit, it turns out they were from Canada and not just that from Goderich which is a small town in Ontario, where my roommate was from.  I asked about him and apparently one of their parents was a partner in my roommate’s mom’s veterinary practice.  It really is a small world.

We had a few bottles of Kolsch and shot the shit.  They were on a grand trip of Germany and many of them had never traveled on their own before.  It was fun to chat about things and seeing the inexperience.  I remember when I was exactly the same way on my first few solo trips.

The next morning I woke up and went for a run around Cologne.  Saw some of the sites and made mental notes of where I wanted to return.

The most impressive part of the Cologne skyline is the magnificent church that dominates the city center.  It is the third tallest twin spire church in the world!  I went inside for a visit and was very impressed although it looked like basically every other grand cathedral that I had visited in Europe so far.

That being said, I do appreciate the architecture and always marvel at what they accomplished for the technology that was available at the time.

After awwing at the church for a while, it was time to head to my first Kolsch of the day!

The first stop was Brewery Paffgen as they were close and served food.

In order to be called a Kolsch in Europe, the beer must be produced within a 50km geographical area of Cologne and brewed according to a specific method outlined by the local brewers group.  Kolsch is also served in a very specific way.  You are served each glass in a 200mL tall thin glass.  It comes delivered on a special circular tray that the waiter serves from.  When you are done your beer, they come around and fill up your glass automatically and then make a tick mark on your coaster to keep track of how many you have had.  In order to indicate you are finished, you either put your coaster on top of your glass or leave a little bit of beer in the glass so they don’t fill it up again.  This way the beer stays nice and cold for your enjoyment.  You can see the glass and the tick marks in the photo below.

I love it when there is this kind of culture surrounding beer.  It has been done this way for hundreds of years and the local people have ensured that it will continue to be done this way for years and years to come.  The locals are very adamant about the way their Kolsch is served and is part of the local culture!

It was time for lunch as well so I got the meter long sausage.  (at least I am pretty sure that is what it was called) it was just a super long sausage on a plate and it was delicious.

as was pretty common throughout Germany, the beers were served out of the barrels.

After lunch I wandered the city a little bit and explored the shopping streets.  They basically had all of the same name brands that the shipping streets in the rest of the world have.  Not much interest from me on these streets, but the people watching is always fun.

As I walked I noticed a delivery cart parked outside of a bar advertising Schmitz Kolsch and it had not popped up on any of my research, so I decided to pop in and see what it was all about.

The thing about Kolsch is it is all brewed very much the same and my pallet is pretty much destroyed by drinking all of the hoppy beers so it is very difficult to decipher the major differences between all of these Kolsch’s I was trying.  The good part was I enjoyed them all!

My wanderings took me through the park and eventually led me to the giant Mosque of Cologne.

It is the largest Mosque in Germany and one of the largest in Europe.  It is brand new and was designed to be much more modern than a typical mosque you would find in other parts of the world.  It was apparently a controversial subject in the local government but was eventually approved and built.  I will say it was one of the more unique mosques I had seen so far although I hadn’t made it to the muslim heavy part of the world yet.

It was getting a bit late and so I jumped on a Mo Bike and headed back to the Hostel before dark.

My intiial plan was to go out and explore the nightlife, but the group assembled in the hostel grew to a pretty large size with people from all around the world and so I ended up just hanging out in the hostel making new friends and chilling.  Eventually one of the Hostel workers got off work and joined us as well.  It was crazy when he told us that he learned English by listening to rap music and so his accent reflected that a little bit which I found fascinating.

We ended up hanging out into the late hours of the morning.

The next day my trip needed to continue and so I joined one of the friends I had met the night before, for one last Kolsch brewery and lunch.  I later saw an episode of an Anthony Bourdain show which went to the same Kolsch brewery and was like “I’ve been there”  I had no idea at the time.

I had more Schnitzel!

After lunch, I headed back to the train station to catch my train to the nearby city of Dortmund where I would reunite with some friends I met in Bangkok!