Kölsch

To prevent an influx of too many brewers, the guild kept their numbers closely in check — a tally that remained virtually unchanged for nearly three centuries; records from 1500 count 80 brewers. Those who brewed without permission — known as Heckenzäpper — could only sell their beer outside the city gates or on floating taverns. From 1698, the guild required every new master to swear not to brew Dollbier — a bottom-fermented beer spiked with henbane and other intoxicating herbs. When French Revolutionary troops marched in in 1794, they brought freedom of trade with them, ending the guild system entirely.

The Sünner brewery has been producing Kölsch in the modern sense since 1906 and used the term "Kölsch" in advertising for the first time in 1918. After the Second World War, only two breweries remained by 1946 — Dom and Sünner; the first pure top-fermenting yeast had to be sourced through Hans Sion's connections at the Carlsberg brewery in Copenhagen. The number of Kölsch breweries later rose again to 24, and by 1960 around 500,000 hectolitres were being brewed in Cologne annually. In 1963 the Cologne Regional Court ruled that Kölsch was not merely a beer style but also a designation of origin; confirmed by the Cologne Court of Appeal in July 1977, Kölsch may no longer be produced outside the region.