Beer donkey
The beer-ass is a well known guest house in Cologne District Old Town North . It refers to a more than 700 year old restaurant tradition as one of the "old Cologne economy" and describes itself as "the oldest mussel house in Cologne."
history
A restaurant is said to have been located at the site of today's beer donkey in Cologne's Breite Strasse since 1297 ; The first recorded entry about an inn "Zum Esel" located there comes from this time. From 1414 today's beer donkey is listed as the brewery “Zum Esel”, Breite Straße 126, in a municipal decree among 21 qualified breweries belonging to the guild , which were exclusively allowed to brew beer in the urban area of Cologne according to the Cologne Purity Law . In 1476 the brewery is shown in historical records under the name "Wilhelm zum Esel". In the following, there are no concrete records of the pub in the era of the imperial city , because at that time the lists of the brewing brotherhood only mentioned the name of the brewer.
The brewing tradition at this historic location was only ended in 1873 with the death of the last proper brewer, Everhard Badorff. After the cessation of the brewing business in the Breite Straße (at that time house no. 4200) the restaurant and brewery were extensively renovated. Among other things, the stepped gable was removed so that the front of the building tapered off in a straight line towards the top, and the windows were also given a "modern" shape for the time. The “beer donkey” was then continued by the brewer Wirtfeld.
In the 19th century, as was common in good breweries at that time, the "donkey" had a general room and a gentleman's room . The furniture was simple with tables and benches made of solid oak, and the walls were also paneled with oak wood as tall as a man; above it they were painted white.
On February 13, 1892, the brewery & distillery Gebrüder Sünner from Cologne-Kalk acquired the building of the rebuilt house "Zum Esel" from the innkeeper and house owner Hermann Kurth at the time. The restaurant was taken over on March 1, 1912 by Fritz Austermühle, who then specialized in fresh mussels from the North Sea . A close friendship between the Sünner family of brewers and the north German mussel growers contributed significantly to this development of the beer donkey to the “First Coelner Muschelhaus”.
“Another restaurant that still exists today - you can eat the best mussels in all of Cologne there - is the so-called beer donkey. This was more for the people, and in earlier times the so-called "dishonest" were allowed to come here, ie the executioner, his servants and the skinner. They sat apart and were only allowed to drink their beer from uncovered stone mugs. The "sparks", the city soldiers, were also considered dishonest in the times of the rich city and had to sit separately as well. Only the French did away with these prejudices. "
The beer donkey was largely destroyed by air raids in World War II. In 1948, the reconstruction began slowly. The restoration work on the restaurant and tavern was not fully completed until 1962 . Willy Austermühle (son of Fritz A.) was the landlord until 1977, the later tenant ran the restaurant from 1981 to 2014, and on September 23, 2014 the beer donkey was taken over by a new tenant.
literature
- BECKER, Hermann - Cologne 60 years ago / Old Cologne inns - Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1922.
- FISCHER, GANSOHR, HEIZMANN, HERBORN, SCHULTZE-BERNDT - Brewing beer in the Rhineland - Rheinland-Verlag GmbH, Cologne 1985.
- KEUSSEN, Hermann - Topography of the City of Cologne in the Middle Ages l - ll, Bonn 1910.
- KLERSCH, Joseph: The history of the brewery trade in Cologne, in: Kölner Brauerei-Verband eV (Hg.) - Cologne and its beer 1396-1946, Cologne 1946, pp. 5-40.
- HEIMANN, Friedrich Carl et al. (Eds.). From the old Cologne. Delivery 1-4. Cologne 1900.
- KLERSCH, STOCKHAUSEN, VINZ, BERG - Cologne and its beer 1346/1946 - Cologne Brewery Association 1946.
- KUEHN: The purity law for beer, in: Journal :. Customs & duties Excise Taxes 31 (1955) 5,193-196.
- LOESCH, Heinrich von: The Cologne guild documents together with other Cologne trade documents up to 1500 I - II, Bonn 1907.
- MATHAR, Franz - HUISKES, Dr. Manfred - SCHMITZ, Dr. Wolfgang - BESSELMANN, Dr. Karl-Ferdinand - Witnesses of Cologne Brewing Culture, Exhibition Catalog - City of Cologne, Historical Archive, 1996
- MATHAR, Franz, and Rudolf SPIEGEL - Cologne beer and breweries. 2nd Edition. Cologne 1991.
- RITTER, Hermann. Kölsch beer. In: Kölnische Volkszeitung, No. 399 of May 4, 1902. - Collection of newspaper clippings in the University and City Library of Cologne.
- Werner Schäfke: - The seal of the Cologne brewers, in: First Cologne Beer Newspaper No. 25, 12th 1993.
- Wilhelm Scheben : - The oldest breweries in Cologne. In: Köln-Sonntags-Anzeiger of August 5, 19 and 26, 1888.
- Wilhelm Scheben: The guild of brewers in Cologne - commission publishing house of F. & W. Boisseree's bookstore, Cologne 1880.
- Wilhelm Scheben: The guild house and the guild of brewers in Cologne. Edited from mostly unprinted sources, Cologne 1875.
- Wilhelm Scheben: The guild of brewers in Cologne in their inner being and work, together with the ancient regulations renewed in 1603 and the official letter renewed in 1497, Cologne 1880.
- SCHWERING, Max-Leo: Craft in Cologne. Ed. Vd Kreishandwerkerschah Cologne 1884-1984, (Cologne 1984).
Web links
- Old Cologne economy - The "beer donkey" in 1860
- Beer donkey 1297 - 1997 in TP-Messe.de
- Gastronomy Cologne - Bieresel Coeln's oldest mussel house in Sünner-Brauerei.de
- Beer donkey in Cologne-Journal.de
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 50 ° 56 ′ 19.9 ″ N , 6 ° 56 ′ 46.3 ″ E