Solo Silo

Brewer's notes:

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The Kölsch style is one of my favorites and also one of the most often misunderstood, due largely to context this style demands. For starters, you really can't call a Kölsch brewed outside of its home city of Cologne, Germany a Kölsch. Like champagne, that name is protected by an appellation. The citizens of Cologne are fiercely proud and protective of this style and rightly so. It's a hybrid style, straddling the line between the fruity complexity of an ale and the clean crispness of a lager. It has earned its own glassware that should only ever have Kölsch in it, special serving trays, and traditions. It is wholly a product of Cologne.

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My wife and I visited Cologne a few years back. We had been driving around the southern half of the country for about a week, but took a train into the city. Due to poor scheduling, we arrived late in the afternoon without having eaten anything all day. We headed to the hotel's cafe for a quick meal. I saw Kölsch on the menu so I attempted to order it in German. I must have mispronounced Kölsch because the waitress just could not understand which beer I wanted. All of sudden it clicked and she said "Oh! The city's beer!" I love that level of identity for a beer. Shortly after, we ended up having many more in the shadow of the impossibly tall gothic Kölner Dom.

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Solo Silo is not an attempt to copy those beers I had in Cologne. Those beers belong to their city. I do want to recreate something in that vein. I dialed in this recipe over many iterations, including the very inappropriate to Germany but perfect for Iowa ingredient of corn. 

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Prost!