Haus zu den Fünf Ringen, Goch

The Haus zu den fünf Ringen was built around 1550 as an elaborate patrician house in Goch in North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located between the Van den Bosch House and the Mosters House at Steinstraße No. 1 in the immediate vicinity of Goch's market square. It is the only house from the 16th century that is still almost completely preserved, although its inner core was completely destroyed in the Second World War, except for the outer walls. The facade was preserved to some extent and the whole house was rebuilt after the Second World War with the available funds by the owner family Franz and Theodor Janßen.

The building originally served as a noble town residence. From 1828, the cellar rooms initially housed a wine wholesaler. The brothers Peter and Anton Otten, who had previously operated a brewery diagonally opposite on Steinstraße, acquired the house around 1850 and moved to the other side of the street to brew beer in the rear parts of the building as well. The brewery thus got its name: "Otten'sche Brauerei zu den fünf Ringen". In 1883, the brewer Theodor Janssen acquired the house together with the brewery and further expanded the business. Until the time before the Second World War, dark beer from the Lower Rhine was brewed in Steinstraße by the Janssen family. After the war and reconstruction, the brewery resumed its activities as a beverage distributor, producing lemonade and ice cream, and bottling Tucher beers, which were shipped in bulk from Nuremberg.

It was only at this time that Franz Janßen gave the building its characteristic green-red-white wooden shutters on the entire facade. After Johannes Janßen, Franz Janßen's son, had gradually expanded the beverage publishing company into a modern beverage wholesaler with a catering orientation from the beginning of the 1970s, the business was relocated to Benzstrasse 23 in the West Industrial Estate from 1983. A beverage pick-up market on the side of the house facing the water garden in Goch was still in operation until the year 2000 and served as a reminder of the beer-related business activities at this location.

The Haus zu den fünf Ringen is currently undergoing extensive renovation and refurbishment after it was sold by the owner family Janßen to the city of Goch in the course of the redevelopment of the Wassergarten/Balfourweg area and the construction of the new Goch city hall. Even before the renovation, it was considered one of the most beautiful town houses on the Lower Rhine and will retain this splendor all the more through the construction measures.