Kölsch Crush: The Crowd-Pleasing German Ale Finds a Fresh Following

As Bryan Winslow worked to open a brewery in Austin, Texas, he faced a conundrum common to contemporary beer: What could he brew to stand out in a crowded market? Even then, in the mid-2010s, Texas was thick with IPAs and pilsners, two styles with proven track records of pleasing crowds of drinkers. Winslow grew up near Houston, harboring fond memories of pinching Saint Arnold Brewing’s Fancy Lawnmower, a kölsch-style ale, from his friend’s dad.

“It was an awesome break from all the Coors Light and Keystone we would drink,” he says of the quenching and crushable kölsch, a lower-alcohol German ale that’s fermented colder, like a lager. The hybrid approach “didn’t fit into boxes like other beers,” says Winslow, who home brewed kölsch-style ales and later professionally brewed one named Karl at Austin Beerworks, where he worked until 2015.

When Winslow left Austin Beerworks, his bosses let him keep his recipe that he renamed Carl and positioned as his refreshing flagship. “No one else was really doing anything like this around here,” Winslow says. He opened St. Elmo Brewing in late 2016, and Carl the kölsch steadily cultivated a following at the taproom and around town. The retro red, white, and blue cans, which bear Carl’s name in swooping script, now fill store shelves around Austin, where Carl plays a rare role in craft beer: Most everybody loves him. “Carl really helped make a name for us,” Winslow says.

Cracking the code on consumer desire is complicated in craft brewing, where trends fizz away as fast as beer foam. The previous decade is littered with blockbuster ideas that never found mass appeal (RIP, bone-dry brut IPA), plus overloaded bandwagons that broke down before reaching a profitable finish line. In hindsight, maybe more breweries should’ve pumped the brakes on black cherry hard seltzer.

The next new notion might be an old one: kölsch, an approachable ale that’s an elegant study in equilibrium and restraint. Hailing from Cologne, Germany, the venerable blonde ale partners crispness with a delicate fruity character. Done well, a subtly bittered kölsch is complex enough to curry favor with seasoned drinkers accustomed to intense IPAs, while also familiar enough to nudge mainstream lager lovers into a flavorful new direction. “Kölsch is a gateway for people into craft beer,” says Dina Dobkin, the chief brand officer of San Francisco’s Fort Point Beer Company. KSA (shorthand for kölsch-style ale) is the brewery’s flagship and among California’s best-selling kölsches. “We hear a lot of people say, ‘I don’t really drink beer, but I drink KSA,’” Dobkin says.

Kölsch is quickly becoming brewers’ handy tool to broaden audiences, curate compelling drinking occasions, boost bottom lines, and offer an affordable beer. A six-pack of Carl might cost $10, while Pittsburgh’s Dancing Gnome sells half-liter mugs of its Not Always Present kölsch for $6. Halfway Crooks, in Atlanta, sells so much kölsch-style Farina that it brews at three different breweries to meet demand. And breweries like Chicago’s Dovetail and Fritz Family Brewers, near Longmont, Colorado, are taking cues from the style’s birthplace in Cologne, Germany, by offering traditional kölsch service, in which drinkers sip small cylinders of kölsch until finding their fill.

“It’s hard to not like kölsch, whether you’re into craft beer or you’re not,” says Andrew Witchey, Dancing Gnome’s founder and brewer.

Breweries regularly uproot classic beer styles from their geographic birthplaces, producing them anywhere and everywhere. Australian brewers produce Czech-style pilsners, while Argentinians knock out hazy New England IPAs. But in Europe, kölsch is only legally permitted to be brewed in Cologne (Köln) and the surrounding region.

The decree came down on March 6, 1986, when kölsch-producing breweries gathered for the Kölsch Konvention and signed a document setting guidelines for making a pale, filtered beer, fermented with ale yeast. In 1997, kölsch received a protected geographical designation restricting production in the European Union, similar to French Champagne. “We have laws that make our beer special,” says Heinrich Philipp Becker, the managing partner and fourth generation to run Cologne’s Gaffel Becker & Company.

The protection doesn’t extend to the United States, creating a free-for-all for breweries to produce kölsch-style ales. Becker isn’t bothered by the widespread adoption, which is helping pave the way for growing exports to America. “Craft brewers help us create awareness for kölsch,” Becker says, adding that “kölsch is becoming a synonym for drinkable beer with character.”

As brewery taprooms become neighborhood bars, offering kölsch can appease customers seeking light domestic lager. “You can put a kölsch in their hands and they’re really happy right away,” says John Barley, the CEO and founder of Solemn Oath Brewery, located in Naperville, Illinois, and Chicago. “They’re not going to find it divisive and say, ‘Well, this tastes like craft beer.’” Solemn Oath first brewed lightly fruity Lü in 2016, and it grabbed a bronze medal at that year’s Great American Beer Festival, later becoming a year-round beer in 2018.

Lü thrives on its approachable flavor and affordable price tag thanks to a simple grain bill, no excessive hops, and a three-week production timeline—less than half the time of some Solemn Oath lagers. A 12-pack of 12-ounce cans often costs less than $20, and a 12-ounce pour is just $6.50 at the brewery’s taprooms. Solemn Oath serves it in an hourglass-shaped glass, like the kind found in time worn Midwestern taverns. “There’s a blue-collar dive bar element,” Barley says.

A kölsch’s moderate ABV, often below 5 percent, is an appealing antithesis to omnipresent double IPAs. “I’d rather have three of something than one and not be able to drive,” says Jeff Huss, who opened Huss Brewing with his wife, Leah, in Tempe, Arizona, in 2013. Leah loved everything about IPAs except the alcohol content, so she asked Huss to create a slightly sweeter kölsch as the brewery’s sociable light beer. The 4.7 percent ABV Scottsdale Blonde also aligned with Arizona’s sunbaked climate and triple-digit temperatures. “Scottsdale Blonde speaks very well to Arizona,” Jeff says, adding that the beer remains the brewery’s top seller, an easy beer to sip by the two or three. “Having a low-alcohol beer as your flagship is definitely more desirable.”

Honoring kölsch’s name without treading on its historical toes is important to many breweries. At Halfway Crooks, founders Shawn Bainbridge and Joran Van Ginderachter call their kölsch, Farina, a top-fermenting lager “to respect the Kölsch Konvention,” Bainbridge says, adding that the terminology can be confusing. “We call it a kölsch when talking to people at our bar.” Each spring, Halfway Crooks puts a bright spotlight on kölsch with a festival featuring plenty of Farina in its beer garden and a 5K run that rewards racers with one kölsch for every completed kilometer.

A key component of Halfway Crooks’ kölsch event is the pomp and pageantry of traditional kölsch service. In Cologne, bars serve kölsch in a narrow cylindrical glass called a stange (German for “stick” or “pole”) that holds 0.2 liters of beer, or nearly seven ounces. Waiters called Köbes, who wear blue shirts and long aprons, deliver kölsch in a kranz, or circular tray, keeping track of beers consumed by ticking a coaster. Ordering is unnecessary; waiters bring refills until drinkers slide a coaster over a glass. “We just open the taps and they don’t stop for two hours,” Bainbridge says.

Offering kölsch service can entice customers to leave their couches and patronize a taproom. “People once sought out breweries, but now you need to have more of an experience,” Van Ginderachter says.

Breweries are now baking kölsch service into taproom hospitality. Everywhere Beer opened in Orange, California, and the brewery’s bright and colorful taproom welcomes anyone for pours of Everyone, its kölsch-style ale. On the first Sunday after tapping a new batch, Everywhere offers traditional kölsch service. “We’re walking around just refilling people’s kölsch allover the place,” says co-founder Daniel Muñoz, adding the staff helps customers understand the style by describing it as a German blonde ale.

While Everywhere reserves full-bar kölsch service for special occasions, taproom guests can experience the service every day while seated at the bar. A friendly bartender’s eagle-eyed attention, combined with the communal aspect of customers sipping the same $4 beer, “helped us build a really solid group of regulars,” Muñoz says. They come back for the kölsch and good company, no need to discuss what’s in one another’s glass.

Kölsch service is a counterpoint to the last decade of hype-chasing beer drinking. Breweries flourished by offering every conceivable and inconceivable beer, and tap lists rarely stayed static from week to week. Popping into a brewery for kölsch service can rekindle the fellowship of sharing pitchers or splitting a 24-pack with friends, no variety needed.

“Sit down and hang out with your friends and family,” says Witchey of Dancing Gnome, which began offering kölsch service in 2022. Forego the menus. “We’ll take care of you and you’ll know what you’re getting.” As at Everywhere, the brewery always offers kölsch service at its bar, while one Tuesday a month, from spring through fall, servers roam the taproom for kölsch service. Dancing Gnome previously offered full-bar kölsch service weekly, but making it monthly helps the brewery better navigate service demands. “We’ve always had a brewery that was not full service,” Witchey says. Customers order at the bar and tote pints to their tables. During kölsch service, “we usually have an extra person on because you always have to be filling glasses and walking them around.”

The logistics and unspoken immediacy of kölsch service can require a rethink for waitstaff. At Montreal’s Poincaré Chinatown, where tiled steps read kölsch club, kölsch service is available anywhere, including the restaurant’s rooftop. Servers “must keep an eye on the room to see, and know, everyone who’s drinking kölsch,” says co-owner and sommelier Hugo Jacques, who collaborated with Quebec brewery Les Grands Bois on a custom kölsch. In putting an order for kölsch, then waiting while a bartender makes cocktails, won’t cut it. “You need the kölsch right now,” Jacques says. “We had to come up with sign language from afar in the room as a way to tell bartenders to start a number of kölsch.”

Kölsch service isn’t a new phenomenon in North America. Holy Grale, a European-inspired bar located in a former Unitarian chapel house in Louisville, Kentucky, started kölsch service in 2013, inspired by co-owner Tyler Trotter’s travels to Cologne. “It was the best beer-drinking experience I’ve ever had,” Trotter says. At first, Holy Grale served traditional German kölsch from brands such as Sünner, but Cologne is a vast distance from Kentucky. “Kölsch should be fresh,” Trotter says. For its weekly kölsch service, held in its seasonal beer garden, Holy Grale often pours kölsch from Freigeist Bierkultur, a German brewery born in Cologne. The twist: Freigeist produces kölsch at Urban Chestnut, a German-owned brewery in St. Louis. “It’s one of the freshest kölsches available to us,” Trotter says, adding that kölsch service attracts, well, a holy grail of customers.

Younger customers tick coasters alongside German expats and a nostalgic older crowd that drank kölsch during trips to Germany. “They love coming back and getting that feeling,” Trotter says.

The American brewing industry makes its bread and butter by innovating, spreading a beer style in unexpected directions. Clean-drinking kölsch is a malleable plaything for breweries like Huss, which makes the cereal-inspired Cinnamon Kölsch Brunch and Koffee Kölsch, while MadTree Brewing in Cincinnati, Ohio, aged a kölsch in former gin barrels. More commonly, brewers amplify the style’s fruity character with blood orange, watermelon, passionfruit, and grapefruit, the latter of which stars in Genesee Brewing Company’s Ruby Red Kölsch.

“It’s a traditional beer style with a twist,” Genesee brand director Inga Grote-Ebbs says of the beer, which was first released in 2018. The Rochester, New York, brewery conceived the citrusy kölsch as a summery seasonal bridge linking its Spring Bock and fall-friendly Oktoberfest lager, but Ruby Red has also introduced Genesee to consumers that might not typically drink its flagship cream ale and classic lagers. “We’re attracting a slightly younger consumer,” Grote-Ebbs says, adding that the fruited kölsch “has helped modernize Genesee”—no small lift for a brewery founded in 1878. The brewery expanded its kölsch lineup to include a pineapple version, currently on hiatus, and one made with mango and peach for 2024.

Beyond flavor innovation, another selling point for craft beer is a sense of place. In New York state’s pastoral Hudson Valley, Lasting Joy Brewery uses regional grains and hops in its beers, including a kölsch named after the brewery’s location on County Route 4. It incorporates rye from Hudson Valley Malt to lend subtle spiciness, creating a thirst-quenching taproom favorite. “We make classic beer styles with a New York twist,” says Emily Wenner, who co-founded Lasting Joy with her brewer husband, Alex.

To produce KSA, Fort Point ferments the beer with Scottish ale yeast. “It has a very similar profile to what people would call traditional kölsch ale yeast, but itmakes a cleaner beer overall,” says co-founder and CEO Justin Catalana, adding that the recipe includes American hops. Fort Point also makes a version of KSA with yuzu juice, and the brewery will introduce a nonalcoholic version of KSA early next year.

It will join a growing category of nonalcoholic kölsch-style ales from Surreal Brewing and Best Day Brewing, which makes America’s top-selling nonalcoholic kölsch. It’s now available on Alaska Airlines, delivering a welcoming point of differentiation at 30,000 feet. “Why do any old lager like everyone else, right?” says Tate Huffard, Best Day’s founder and CEO. “People want flavor here, because they’re not coming for the alcohol.”

There’s clear mass-market interest for kölsch-style ales. However, translating another country’s culture and beer traditions is not without tribulations. At Dancing Gnome, some kölsch-service customers might treat ticking beers on a coaster as a competition, while other people maybe resistant to counting beers. “I’m like, ‘Well, we need to know for a million different reasons,’” says Dancing Gnome’s Witchey. Other customers would rather buy half-liter mugs of Not Always Present. “They don’t care about stanges and drinking in small portions.” When Winslow of St. Elmo Brewing first ordered glassware for Carl, he opted for larger cylindrical glasses that hold 11.2 ounces of beer. Convincing people to order half a beer was not a hill to die on. “Completely changing the size of the beer that people are consuming didn’t seem plausible,” Winslow says.

Craft beer rose to prominence in America by combatting the concept of what beer could be, all those bitter IPAs, intense imperial stouts, and barrel-aged wild ales delivering bold differentiation in a marketplace awash in bland lagers. Intensities, though, can both attract and repel customers. A properly brewed kölsch is neither barbed nor bland. It’s a welcoming beer style for one and all, able to expand a customer base with ease.

Each fall for hunting season, St. Elmo Brewing releases a limited-edition can of Carl that’s clad in camo, taking Carl from his main city market to the countryside. With Carl, the goal is to make the beer “as fun as possible,” Winslow says. To that end, the brewery began kölsch-style service this June, ordering customized kranz to accommodate the larger size of the gold-rimmed glasses bearing Carl’s moniker. “That’s our number one stolen item,” says Winslow, who is sanguine about the theft. “I’m not super-bothered because people don’t take the glass because it sucks. They’re taking it home because they like it, want to remember us, and they’re going to come back for a kölsch.”