Malt & Grain

What malt is Kölsch brewed from? Mainly pale barley malt, the same kind used for Pils. Malt is grain that's been allowed to germinate and is then dried. During this oven-drying process, called kilning, temperature determines the color: the gentler the kilning, the paler the malt stays and the fewer roasted notes make it into the beer.

This is exactly where the heart of the 'Kölsch vs. Alt' question lies. Both beers are top-fermented, yet Kölsch gets pale malt and stays straw-yellow, while Altbier from Düsseldorf turns copper-brown from more darkly kilned malt. According to the BJCP guidelines, Kölsch sits at 7 to 10 EBC, Altbier at 18 to 33. EBC is the European scale for beer color.

Because Kölsch is top-fermented, the law allows other malts besides barley to be used outside Bavaria, such as wheat malt. Breweries generally don't disclose how much goes into any particular beer. The result is meant to be pale, clear, and free of sweetness in the finish. That's why Kölsch tastes lean and bready, and the Wieß of earlier generations was presumably similarly plain.

The barley for such beers doesn't come from downtown, but from the farmland of the Rhineland and beyond. The fertile loess soils of the Cologne Lowland have long been regarded as excellent farmland. Maltsters turn the barley into malt, which the brewery then mills and adds to the mash tun. The grist is the coarsely cracked grain from which the wort is later made.