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New Beer Hall to Bring Taste of Germany to Park Slope

By DNAinfo Staff on May 21, 2012 6:48am

The new Die Koelner Bierhalle is set to open at 84 St. Mark's Place later this week, its co-owner said.
The new Die Koelner Bierhalle is set to open at 84 St. Mark's Place later this week, its co-owner said.
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DNAinfo/Elizabeth Wine

By Elizabeth Wine

Special to DNAinfo.com New York

BROOKLYN — Get ready to raise your steins.

Park Slope is slated to welcome its first authentic beer hall later this week, featuring rare German brews courtesy of the folks behind a popular Fort Greene beer hall.

Die Koelner Bierhalle — German for The Cologne Beer Hall — is bringing a taste of Deutschland to the neighborhood by serving unusual, exclusive brews certified under the Reinheitsgebot, otherwise known as the German Beer Purity Law. Historically, Bavarian law decreed the only ingredients brewmasters could use were water, barley and hops.

The 4,000-square-foot hall, run by the co-owners of Der Schwarze Kolner beer hall on Fulton Street, will specialize in suds from smaller breweries that produce only about 5,000 barrels a year, carrying 30 on tap and more than 40 bottled beers.

Two popular selections will be Weltenburger Asambock, a dark beer from what is said to be the oldest monastery brewery in the world dating to 1050, and Sion Koelsch, a golden-hued favorite from Cologne that is less bitter than the standard pale German lager.

“This is about specialty German beers,” said Dale Hall, one of new hall’s three owners, adding that it will be the only place in the city where customers can get these brews. The hall will also boast a full bar and wine list, he added.

To accompany their unique beers, customers can also choose from a wide variety of sausages, including the standard bratwurst and kielbasa. Harder-to-find delicacies like bauenwurst, a chunky farmer’s sausage, and weisswurst, the boiled white sausage made of veal and pork, will also be on the menu.

Steaks, burgers and fish will be available for the less adventurous, as well as pretzels and traditional Bavarian semmel broetchen rolls imported from Germany. The breads arrive half-baked, with the beer hall finishing the job on site.

The sprawling, converted warehouse includes high ceilings and is filled with long communal tables and benches that can seat up to 200 people. A back garden will add another 1,200 square feet when it opens later this summer, Hall explained.

The co-owner lived in Cologne for more than 17 years before moving to the US six years ago. During that time, he introduced Fort Greene to more standard German brews by opening Der Schwarze Koelner at 710 Fulton St.

The new hall bears many marks of Cologne, with the city’s coat of arms and local vocabulary gracing the walls.

For example, when Cologne natives want a sausage, they say wooch, while the average German says wurst.

And visitors shouldn't have any trouble using the regional dialect — as the words are spelled out in bright paint on the beer hall's walls.

Die Koelner is located at 84 St. Mark's Place