An over-zealous sip of Gaffel Kölsch flooded my mouth with tiny bubbles. I was sitting at the counter in a pub in old town Cologne, the lights weren’t on, and from the outside it had looked like the place wasn’t open (which, on this afternoon, many bars were not). The barman was scurrying around, cleaning glasses and moving furniture, readying himself for one of his busiest nights of the year. It was the day before the Carnival was set to begin.

In Cologne, even many of the smaller bars are furnished like beer halls. Sturdy bar tops are finished with a dark wood stain and a hardy varnish. Large and elegant light fittings hang majestically in the centre of the room. The tables and chairs are tightly clustered and mismatched. Eating and drinking is largely without pretence, and yet an underlying classiness prevails. “Refined” and “casual” might be antonyms outside of Europe—and perhaps even in some corners of Germany, like suave Düsseldorf and refined Frankfurt—but not here.

It was by accident that I had scheduled my short break for just before the Cologne Carnival. As I finished my glass of Kölsch, the dark clouds that had gathered over the city finally burst. While waiting for the rain to stop, I had the opportunity to learn what the Carnival is all about from some locals. Put simply, it can be summarised in a single word: debauchery.

“I remember leaving one bar at 6am last year, at the end of Carnival”, a fellow patron told me. “After serving all day and all night, they went to lock the doors, and then realised that they were gone. The doors were solid oak, and someone had taken them. They brought them back, after one more drink. They just didn’t want the night to be over.”

““Cologne was different; more traditional at its core than the capital yet filled with more smiles than any other German city I’d visited.””

I turned to the barman, expecting his expression to mirror my shock, but instead, he was chuckling softly with a shrug.

“See this,” He gestured toward a large piece of furniture on the other side of the room made from what looked like walnut. He hesitated for a moment to remember an English word for a large wooden cabinet, or dresser. “Someone fell asleep in the small gap behind it last year. He wasn’t found until the day after”. Clearly, this was a drinking-focused event not for the faint-hearted.

Within a few hours of arriving in the city, I’d become suspicious of the high volume of fancy dress stores on unassuming quiet streets, marked in each case by a logo bearing a garish clown face. They had seemed sinister until I had learned of their jovial purpose. One of Europe’s largest and oldest carnivals, the Cologne Carnival originated as a winter solstice celebration. Nowadays, it is a street party of epic proportions, where fancy dress costumes are mandatory. Perhaps most surprisingly, many pubs stay open for the full duration of the six-day extravaganza (which explains why some of the bars I had tried to visit had been taking a rest day).

The barman whisked away my glass, refilled it, and set it down again. One of the most charming things about drinking Kölsch in Cologne is the serving size. The beer is poured in a tiny slim glass known as a stange. Holding just 200ml, it is designed to be refilled many times over. Once the drinker has had their fill, a beer mat may be placed over the rim of the glass to signal to the bartender that they are ready for the bill. Failure to do so will result in a speedy delivery of a fresh beer within moments of the previous glass being drained, which may help explain how the atmosphere of Carnival gets so merry, despite the tiny drinking vessels.

Light gold in colour, Kölsch tends to have a gentle aroma of apricot with a hint of sulphur. A hybrid ale fermented like a lager, it’s typically made from a single malt bill of German pilsner or pale malt, with German noble hops such as Hallertau and Saaz. It drinks clean with a light mouthfeel, which makes it manageable for long and meandering daytime drinking sessions. The bitter finish, laced with subtle notes of grass, minerals and ripe apples is reminiscent of the scent of an old-fashioned soap.

The enjoyment of drinking beer in Cologne is amplified by something of a placebo effect. “I’ve had five beers!” I had exclaimed an hour into the drinking session. In reality, I had drunk a little under two pints, but something about having multiple refills of the tiny stange—and always with a solid 15-20% foam at that—made me feel overly jovial and light on my feet as I left the bar; much more so than if the same volume had been served to me in a single container.

As I bid farewell to the barman and my other newly found friends to head for the train station, the last of the dark clouds were beginning to drift away, revealing a powder blue sky streaked with white. The smokey stones of the cathedral were still damp from the rain. I reflected upon how the city had made me feel welcome. It had a friendly aura that reminded me of mid-sized cities in the Midlands like my university town of Nottingham, where strangers chattering at a crowded bar while waiting for service is commonplace.

““The doors were solid oak, and someone had taken them. They brought them back, after one more drink. They just didn’t want the night to be over.””

Germany can often have a reputation for being home to the slightly mild-mannered of temperament and lukewarm of mood. That stereotype certainly fits with much of my experience of Germany outside of Berlin, but Cologne was different; more traditional at its core than the capital yet filled with more smiles than any other German city I’d visited, despite its small size.

The beginning of the festivities was creeping closer, and locals were scurrying through the square clutching costumes, as excitable as children on Christmas morning. Men wearing high-vis jackets placed out cones and fencing, whistling to themselves as they worked.

As my train pulled away from the station, I wished I could stay until the evenly spaced orange traffic cones were replaced with closely clustered excitable revellers lining the streets. As my train hurtled towards a reality without the high spirits and infectious energy of the one I was leaving, I was certain of one thing; Cologne punches far above its weight when it comes to throwing a party, and I absolutely must return.