Auf Rome 1468

This Cologne brewery is a real piece of city history and tells of the enthusiasm and dedication of Cologne residents when it comes to their beer.

Today I bake, tomorrow I brew!

The name of the brewery comes from a house called Auf Rome, around which numerous legends and stories revolve. Today the building no longer exists, but people lived, baked and brewed there until it was demolished in 1872. Rome was built around the year 1180 and was part of the Cologne city wall. A city gate and some buildings were part of the complex that would receive its name around a hundred years later. A certain Hilpericus Roemer bought the building and set up a bakery in it. Since there were no house numbers back then, many houses and businesses had names so that people could find them and recommend them to friends and relatives. If you went to Roemer's bakery to buy bread or pastries, you were going, in Cologne parlance, “To Rome”. The popular term caught on and the people of Cologne named the house Auf Rome. The second part of the name refers to the first year in which beer was brewed at the Auf Rome house: the first brewery opened its doors there in 1468 and will be the first in a long series of breweries at this location.

Beer instead of books

In its almost 700 years of history, the Auf Rome brewery and distillery has changed hands countless times. Brewers, noblemen, citizens and families ran the brewery until the building was sold to the city of Cologne in 1872 and was demolished shortly afterwards. The story of Auf Rome ends until it is picked up again in 2019 by Caroline Hamacher-Linnenberg and her husband Ulrich Linnenberg. After a career in a completely different field, the two wanted to spend their retirement in peace and with a whole lot of books, but life got in the way. Ulrich has always dreamed of brewing his own beer and is now using his retirement to make this dream come true. The name of the project was quickly found, now the two of them just had to get their beer on the chain. Cologne is the capital of Kölsch, but Ulrich and Caroline had no desire to feed the oversaturated market with another variant of the popular beer. Instead, they developed the Düxer Bock . The powerful strong beer is a welcome change from the light-footed Kölsch and complements the Cologne beer scene with a full-bodied malt character, creamy honey and caramel notes, hints of dried fruit and roasted bitterness.