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Klsch (Beer)Klsch is a local beer speciality brewed in Cologne in Germany. It is a clear beer, relatively weak for German (but not American) standards, its hue is bright yellow and it has a prominent, but not extreme taste of hops. Compared to the German "standard" beer, Pils, it is less bitter. Also other than Pils it is a top-fermented beer, meaning that it is fermented rather quickly at between 15-20C causing the yeast to rise to the top, while Pils is fermented slowly at much colder temperatures. However, Klsch yeast is often confused with a bottom-fermented beer yeast because of its relatively low fermentation temperature. Although it ferments colder than most Ales, it is definitely an Ale. Klsch should be served at cellar temperature (about 10C/50F, not near freezing). It is usually served in long, thin, cylindrical 0.2 litre glasses. This glass is known as a Stange, but is often derisively called a Reagenzglas (test tube). Recently though, many bars have moved to satisfy their more thirsty customers by offering larger, less traditional glasses (0.3 l or 0.4 l) of the same shape. Since 1936 Klsch has also been available in bottled form. Klsch is often accompanied by simple Cologne delicacies such as the Halve Hahn (a rye roll with butter and dutch cheese, not a half rooster as the name would suggest) or Blootwoosch (blood sausage). Beer has been brewed in Cologne since 874, but the term Klsch was officially used for the first time in 1918 to describe the type of beer that had been brewed by the Snner brewery since 1906. This type of beer developed from the similar, but cloudier variant Wiess. 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. Until 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 Klsch still couldn't 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 (Klschkneipen) and for smaller breweries. Today, the annual consumption of Klsch is about 3 million hectoliters. Around thirty breweries produce Klsch in and around Cologne, the most important ones being Dom, Frh, Gaffel, Gilden, Reissdorf and Sion and the trend is towards consolidation. Klsch is the only beer that may not be brewed outside the Cologne region, as determined by the Klsch convention of 1986. There is a grandfather clause for a few breweries in the larger area, for example in Bonn, that were already established in 1986. However many brands are illegally brewed abroad on a small scale - especially in the US and Japan. Klsch stands in direct competition to Altbier, the production of which is centred around Dsseldorf, but which is ironically also produced by all the major breweries in Cologne. The rivalry between the cities of Cologne and Dsseldorf, bitter in the past but today mostly a humorous matter, is often expressed by the preference of one of these types of beer, and ordering the wrong kind in the wrong city has in fact resulted in abuse and even violence in the past, although today a couple of jokes about "foreigners" is probably all that would result. Another interesting sociological point concerning Klsch is that its consumption is deemed acceptable by women to a much greater extent than other beers in Germany, and also that it is often drunk in groups of rather mixed social standing -- exclusivity is frowned upon by the Klsch drinking culture, and there is a deal between the breweries that no Klsch will be sold with any extra titles like "Premium", "Special", "Extra high quality" or some such. Karl Marx once famously remarked that his revolution couldn't work in Cologne, since the bosses went to the same pubs as their workers. Klsch waiters in traditional pubs are allowed, and indeed expected, to speak the local dialect and to use fairly rough, unrefined language, which might include crude jokes with the customers. In 1999, during a G8 summit, President Bill Clinton paid the brewery Zur Malzmhle (The Malt Mill) a surprise visit, coining his own version of John F. Kennedy's homage to German cultural identity with the phrase: "Ich bin ein Klsch (I am a Klsch)" Selected Klsch brands Kolsch
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