In the year 1396, the Brewer Gaffel signed, with 21 other Guilds, a document called the Kölner Verbundbrief, that set up a new democratic constitution of the free city, which terminated the rule of the nobles over the citizens, and held until 1796, when Napolean Bonapartes army conquered Cologne. The term Kölsch was officially used for the first time in 1918 to describe the type of beer that had been brewed by the Sünner brewery since 1906. This type of beer developed from the similar, but cloudier variant Wiess (White). It never became particularly popular in the first half of the twentieth century, when the most popular beer was bottom-fermented, just as in the rest of Germany. Before World War II, there were over 40 breweries in Cologne, but in the aftermath of the devastations wrought by the war, that number was reduced to two.
In 1946, however, many of the breweries managed to re-establish themselves. During the 1940s and 1950s Kölsch still could not match the sales of bottom-fermented beer, but beginning in the 1960s it rose in popularity and achieved hegemony in the Cologne beer market. From a production of merely 500,000 hectoliters in 1960, Cologne's beer production peaked in 1980, when 3.7 million hectoliters were produced. Due to recent increases in price and changed habits of alcohol consumption, the sale has decreased causing economic hardship for many of the traditional corner bars (Kölschkneipen) and for smaller breweries. In 2005, 2.4 million hectolitres of Kölsch were brewed.
Fourteen breweries produce Kölsch in and around Cologne, the most important ones being Früh, Erzquell (Zunft Kölsch), Gaffel, Reissdorf and Kölner Verbund; the trend is towards consolidation. Kölsch is the only beer that may not be brewed outside the Cologne region, as determined by the Kölsch convention of 1986. There is a grandfather clause for a few breweries in the larger area, for example in Bonn, that were already established as of 1986. In 1997 Kölsch became a protected designation of origin, expanding this protection to the entire EU and several counties outside the EU. Nevertheless many brands are brewed abroad on a small scale - especially in the U.S. and Japan. While the labeling of these brews as Kölsch may not be illegal in local law, it is certainly misleading, because they are neither from Cologne nor are they guaranteed to comply with the Reinheitsgebot. |
