Hollandia
Swinkels Family Brewers

Paris 30/3 2026. 65 cl bottle from local mini-marketnear Gare de Lyon, Paris 12e. As “Hollandia Premium” with an ABV of 4,7. Green label in classic, standard design with a Coat of Arms with two golden lions holding a red shield with a white lion. They are very enthusiastic about lions.

Pours clear yellow with a mid-sized white head. Stable. Settles as a 0,3 cm thick layer of foam covering the surface of the beer. Moderate lacing.

Aroma is moderately intense with a sweet malty odor mingling with a chemical scent. Sweet pale malts, sugar and corn. Whiff of burnt rubber and glue. Sour grains.

Medium strong carbonation. Thin, oily, lively and tingling texture.

Flavor is moderately intense with medium strong sweetness followed by a slightly stronger bitterness. Aftertaste is lightly bitter with a salty tang. Lingers shortly. Finish is a bit watery.

Refreshing if you can ignore the rubber and the glue.

 

 

At my lady Pamela's house; canned and chilled, 500mL in a pint glass. From my favourite LCBO at Tecumseh Mall in nearby Windsor. My first beer from the Lieshout, Netherlands brewery...

 

Yellow color, medium-sized white head. Aroma of malt and hay. Taste is malty, moderately sweet with hoppy notes. Light, hoppy bitterness and short aftertaste.

Never seen this before, excited to try. Can seems kind of unique and thicker than a usual can. Glucose syrup on the ingredients, not a great sign.

Quite effervescent. Rough foam as opposed to smooth, typical colour. Sweet, lightly tropical, hoppy aroma.

Taste is much more bitter than the aroma. Very different to the more commercial Dutch pilsners. I really like the hops. It is sweet, but the hops somehow almost create enough bitter balance. Feel is quite thin. However the more I drink it, the less I like it. The hops or hops extract do add some interesting tongue sensations and flavour, but it's a little too watery and weak...and sweet. Dominant flavours are glucose syrup, watermelon, a little lemon peel.

Totally drinkable but lacks any interesting malt and is too sweet and light on the hops.

 

This was a Christmas gift that was part of a very lazy mixed beer box (looking at you, Pinnacle Drinks!) bought with the best of intent from my non-beer-savvy father. Drunk in January 2024.

L: This is the archetypal beer profile: bright golden/amber yellow, a brilliant but thin white head, and large bubbles marching purposefully up the glass.

S: Unfortunately, things go downhill very quickly. The main aroma is butter - and lots of it - with lashings of green grass and hay. I suppose there's some sweet malt there, but I had to search for it.

T: Taste is also very buttery, with a sweet malt body at least trying to assert itself, if ineffectually, and coupled with a very bland bitterness that brings nothing to the table other than a slight balancing of the beer's sweetness.

M: Mouthfeel is watery, and the finish is thin. There's not enough carbonation to balance the sweetness of the beer, and when coupled with the lack of bitterness, the green bottle, and the general lassitude of the brewer, we get a sweet buttery bomb.

O: There's no two ways about it - this is a bad beer. There is nothing to excuse or recommend it: no hot Dutch climate that excuses a bland, sweet lager; no low alcohol that explains the lack of body and vigour in the beer; and no reason to drink this unless there's an apocalypse and only Royal Dutch Swinkels has survived to carry on the art of brewing.

Cheers!
#450

 

 

 

Pours a clear gold colour with a dense white head atop. Corny and grainy on the nose. Biscuit and crackers on the taste with a background of metallic and hops. Crisp and clean mouthfeel with an awkward aftertaste
Jan 13 2023

 

 

11.2 oz green bottles. Great low price by the case.
L: It looks like a typical EPL and pours with a slightly soapy white head, medium-low carbo and leaves scattered lacing.
S: The aroma is light Noble hops, a grain note and distant bread dough, distant fruit.
T: The taste is basic, lightly bitter and follows the aroma plus it's a little bit grassy.
F: The mouthfeel is fairly light bodied and is smooth with a medium-short finish.
Overall it's a bit like Grolsch or Heineken (the way it tasted 15 yrs ago). It's cheap and an okay easy drinking beer.

Hollandia is a cheap European supermarket beer, that has now been around in Australia for a few years now, as - you guessed it - a cheap supermarket beer. Whilst beer isn't sold in supermarkets in Australia, it is one of the cheaper options you'll find in branded Bottle Shops around the country. It's moulded in the same market as Heineken, just without the price.

Look: Standard Dutch/German Western European lager look to it. Straw gold, completely filtered, a healthy stream of small bubbled slithering up to the top of the glass, but not bubbling like a spa. Head is a soapy white, very thin dissipates quickly to a think foam on top. Standard for a Euro lager, nothing to write home about.

Smell: Nice clean, inviting lager smell. Sweet malt grains, bright citrus hops. Again, very similar to a Heineken styled beer. Smells like a summer beer, smells refreshing.

Taste: As expected, clean, crisp and refreshing. Front of the sip has a nice sweetness, The back end of the sip gives you plenty of hop flavour, not very bitter but enough to be refreshing.

Feel: Refreshing, inoffensive, and clean

Overall: Despite it being a cheap European Supermarket beer, it's actually not bad value for money. It's got everything I look for in a lager. Refreshing, light, and decent flavour. It's not going to hurt the hip pocket. Actually a decent drop considering it's a industrial supermarket lager. Worth picking up when you just need something to quench the thirst. Would buy again.

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