Haus Töller

Weyerstraße follows an old Roman road that ran westward out of the city via Luxemburger Straße all the way to Trier and Luxembourg; only a few metres from the house stood the Weyertor, one of the largest gates in the medieval city wall. Along this busy street, inns, taverns and house breweries settled from the 15th century onward — towards the end of the 19th century, the short stretch between Rothgerberbach and the Weyertor counted as many as nine establishments with their own tap.

The building itself, the "Steynen Huys" (Stone House), was — unlike the simple half-timbered structures of the neighbourhood — built of stone and stood right next to the city's "Tollhaus" (customs house) at the Weyertor. Originally laid out as a double house with two separate halves ("Halbscheiden"), it changed hands several times over the centuries — its owners included the Cologne Cathedral Chapter and the Cologne Alexians. Only from 1772 onward were the two halves reunited into a single property. A hospitality business serving alcohol can be documented in the house from 1813, then under owner Joseph Geerling.

On 1 May 1912, Peter Esser took over the house and ran it as "Schenkwirtschaft und Restauration von Peter Esser. Vorm. Th. Töller" (Peter Esser's Tavern and Restaurant, formerly Th. Töller). In 1915 he had a small hall built onto the rear, which extends the capacity to this day. His son Willy Esser, nicknamed "dä akademische Zappjung" (the academic tap boy) on account of his university studies, ran the business into the 1980s.

After the Second World War, the house was one of the few almost undamaged buildings in a Cologne city centre that had been more than 90 percent destroyed, and in 1947 it became the starting point for the re-founding of the KDStV Rappoltstein student fraternity. It is also recorded that Willy Esser travelled from ruined Cologne to the Carlsberg brewery in Denmark and brought back top-fermenting yeast for the first post-war Kölsch, which several Cologne breweries urgently needed. From the 1950s to the 1980s, the tavern was a meeting place for many celebrities. A guest book kept since the 1930s — today displayed behind glass in the taproom — gathers entries from Konrad Adenauer, Heinrich Lübke, Joseph Beuys, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Roy Black, James Last, Wencke Myhre, Berti Vogts and Karl-Heinz Schnellinger, alongside many newspaper reports about the house.

After several changes of tenant, Henning Heuser took over the house in November 2003. In 2007 the brewery changed as well: after 51 years of Sion and 34 years of Mühlen Kölsch, the small Päffgen brewery has supplied it ever since — alongside Päffgen's own home brewpub, Haus Töller is one of the few establishments to carry the brand. Service is provided by Köbes in traditional blue work clothes; as in many Rhineland brewpubs, an empty glass is swapped for a full one even without an order until the guest places a beer coaster on top of it. Behind the scenes, a cook and a Kaltmamsell (cold-kitchen cook) take care of the catering.

The rustic Cologne menu offers mostly homemade classics such as Halver Hahn, Hämchen, Himmel un Ääd or Rhenish Sauerbraten made with horse meat; on Fridays, the Rhineland's potato-pancake day, there are Rievkooche (potato pancakes) with dark bread, beet syrup or apple sauce. Modern trappings such as a sound system, slot machine, cash register, espresso machine or television are nowhere to be found in Haus Töller.