The story of Brauhaus FRÜH am Dom begins in 1904, when Peter Josef Früh established a brewery and tavern in the shadows of the city’s cathedral. It has since become something of a tourist destination and it’s one of the largest brewery taps in the country. The buildings were badly damaged during the Second World War, but the cellars remained and they were able to rebuild relatively quickly.
I’d add now that this isn’t really entirely my thing, it’s a beer style that I don’t much rate in what feels like a pile it high sell it cheap type approach. That’s great and I wanted to experience it, but I was never sold on it. There were countless rooms leading off from each other, some looked like larger dining rooms but I was seated in this section which had a bit of character to it. Well, it was a bit dark anyway and I like that.
The place is huge and I was directed to a table by a slightly gruff, but not unfriendly, server. He took my order and only looked slightly annoyed that I checked in advance if I could pay by card. More on how the cash only model is falling away in Cologne in another post though, I won’t get distracted with that here.
The local beer style is Kölsch, a top-fermented ale that is finished with cold maturation like a lager. I was amused that the city’s museum states that the glasses are like this as the beer gets stale very quickly otherwise, which doesn’t really excite me in a drink. As a beer, it hasn’t burdened itself with flavour, taste or depth. But it’s cold and crisp.
The beer is served as 0.3 litres per glass as standard, they then mark off on the beermat how many drinks have been consumed. I went for two, even though that breaks my Untappd rule of rarely having the same beer twice in one place, just to add some excitement to the proceedings. I did the thing of putting the beermat on the top of the glass when I was finished.
The service was efficient and routine, I was quite content with the value of the whole arrangement. But, the service for others seemed a little more brusque, the server managed to have a slight argument with two of the four tables that he was serving. One of the tables was a group of American tourists who said they wanted to sit by the window and the server didn’t want them sitting by the window, but I quite enjoyed watching the awkward manner when he took the order with everyone being a bit annoyed.
The general reviews for the place are decent, although the service element gets just a 2/5 on Google which is really quite low. But it’s just such a high turnover place that I can see that the servers just want customers served quickly rather than have endless conversations with what mostly seemed like tourists.
The food was quite expensive so I limited myself to the beers and they have kept the price of those moderate. The cost of the two beers was €5 and the server didn’t try and charge a tip, which seemed a little unusual but perhaps he thought I looked grumpy. Numerous reviews mention that the servers have to give some of their tips to the kitchen, but perhaps they focus on those eating food rather than having two beers. I didn’t try and visit the toilet facilities, but it seems that the attendant expects payment for using them. Imagine JD Wetherspoon trying that….
It was an interesting place to visit, but it felt like a bit of a tourist trap to me rather than being anything authentic. For anyone serious about beer, there’s the relatively nearby Tipsy Monk bar which was operating to a very high standard of customer service and they also had the same Früh Kölsch beer on draft for those who want to try it.