Right, I found my mouse, I may have (temporarily) fixed the boiler, I need to catch up on the posts. Here’s the last one from Cologne.
4th November 2022.
“A European Must Visit” said Ron Pattinson in his Guide to Cologne, which sounds like a recommendation to me. Dave loved it too, and so did Boak & Bailey. More importantly, what would Mrs RM think ?
This is the Paffgen brewery tap, on the western edge of the city. Ron said “beware hipsters”, but all we saw were tourists pushing suitcases.
Ron also says walk it, so you must walk it, took us 20 minutes from the Dom.
It was bang in the middle of lunchtime on a Friday, would we get a seat ?
Well, yes, but seemingly only just. Cologne was heaving on our visit.
Let’s get straight to the video showing the delivery of the wooden barrel of Kolsch.
Wow. Imagine Doom Bar being delivered like that in a Craft Union pub. Those hipsters would go crazy for it.
I thought the Kolsch was gorgeous, but almost irrelevant to any view of the Paffgen tap.
Honestly, you’d come here just to visit the loos.
Please don’t ask me what this machine dispenses. Probably chastity belts.
Every inch of this place is a marvel, reminding me weirdly of Rennie Mackintosh.
Throughout our stay the phone rang in the little cubicle in the corner. It was a ring you hadn’t heard since soap operas of the 1970s. “The phone has a CORD” said Mrs RM, astonished.
We admired the cosiness, the efficiency, the friendliness of the Kobe.
We wondered if ANYONE dared order anything other than beer. Just then, someone DID order a soft drink. Mind, he was about five years old, and even Germans don’t serve beer to toddlers.
Our last meal, our first Schnitzel of the trip. Honestly, this is living, alright.
A perfect end to 3 nights in Cologne, but I’m glad no-one was keeping a tally of those marks on the beer mats.
But was it better than Lommi’s ?
Like comparing the Marble Arch with the Hare & Hounds, I’d say.
retiredmartin 
If it isn’t as good, it is still spectacular.
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Both great. Drink in both.
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Pretty sure I had a frying pan full of sausages in there, that was definitely living as well. Never realised there were German yuppies.
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I can’t say that I had any sightings of them. Seemed a very down to earth culture overall.
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I’ve never seen them. Need to go to Franfurt.
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A bit reminiscent of the Gas Lamp in Manchester.
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Good comparison. I must revisit the Gas Lamp.
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Thanks Martin, for those photos of Päffgen. They reminded me of what a marvelous place it is, and the beer’s excellent, as well. Glad you enjoyed your experience of Cologne’s finest pub.
It’s probably no exaggeration to say I was blown away on my first visit (1975), and my second (2009) was just as good. Must call in for a third time, next March.
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Those pubs are like living museums with beer, aren’t they ?
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My visit to Brauerei Päffgen was really lifted by a group of schoolchildren invading the place and trying to get a slightly gruff Köbes to provide answers to their questionnaire, which made the other waiters and customers laugh, the kind of happenstance that can make a pub memorable beyond the atmosphere and beer.
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I love it when something like that happens !
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Aye, like all those blacked-up folk playing accordions in Padstow on Mummers’ Day and filing in and out of the pubs.
How they get away with that I’ll never know.
(The accordions, that is)
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