What's the situation with beer in Nederland? Are there any styles unique to the country? Of course I know that the green piss is dominant, but historically, what's the situation? I assume they had and still do have fun ales, and I know they have a trappist abbey or two. I'm also aware they culturally have a lot in common with the Duits to the east whether they will admit it or not. However, they didn't have to put with with the RHG bullcrap. So, why do I really not hear about Nederland beer outside of Hiney-kin?
but in all seriousness, de molen, emelisse and koningshoeven are all from NL. youve also got another green monster - pop top grolsch, that you can indeed get in the US.
I'm not an expert on the matter, but yes, there is one style that has pretty much survived: Oud Bruin. Nowadays dutch Oud Bruin is dark brown, low in alcohol and sweet, don't ask me how this resembles the "historic" versions, it sure is different from the belgian ones. Another thing which is hugely popular in the netherlands is bok. You'll see everyone, yes even La Trappe, making one, but they differ greatly in quality, color and even fermentation process. The emergence of belgian inspired breweries in my mind started with the ones like 't ij in the 1980ies. In general, a lot of beer cafes with better beer used to be very beglain oriented, and the better beers you could get were always belgian, despite a few smaller dutch brewers making those styles as well. I remember Duvel and La Chouffe being aviable in a lot of pubs. I feel like in recent years, the focus is changing towards american inspired microbrews, but I'm not there often enough to really tell the impact. I feel it in the supermarkets now where you, besides the giant selection of quality belgian brews, get stuff by dutch micros and american imports. As for historical styles (which are being revived, at least some of them), I can only refer to what ron researched and wrote, which is some fascinating stuff. Maybe this is a starting point to search further: http://barclayperkins.blogspot.de/search?q=gerste
Hopefully Ron (@patto1ro) will chime into this discussion. Ron did not attend last year's National Homebrewers Conference (San Diego) but he did 'participate' with a number of San Diego breweries to recreate some historical Dutch beers. I was able to drink some of these beers since they were poured at the NHC. I can't remember all of the beers that were made but I do recall that I liked a historical Dutch Bock beer but I do not exactly remember the year (1910?) and which California brewery that produced this recreated beer. Cheers!
Well Dutchie in the house, so I can tell you something about beer in The Netherlands. We don't have just one typical style of beer, everything is brewed in The Netherlands. From sours to thick stouts and everything in between. Also a lot of brewers are barrel aging their beers on different kind of casks. What I personally like is to have an original and different BA's in a tasting. We have about 350-400 (don't know the exact amount) (micro)breweries and still counting. Nowadays we have more breweries than Belgium. Most of them are small craft brewers, brewing innovative and tasty beers. Because they are brewing in small amounts, the smaller breweries don't export. Some brewers are getting bigger and have to collaborate with bigger companies to forfill the needs and export internationally. Other brewers are keeping it simple or small. Funny to know: there are a lot of municipalities, which have their own beers, named after the village or something characteristic for the region. But why don't you hear about the Dutch brewers? We don't have a big culture of advertising with beer. The bigger companies, like (your words) green piss, Brand, Bavaria, Grolsch and others use marketingtechniques on national and international scale. The smaller brewers don't. Why? No money, busy brewing, busy tasting, keeping it exclusive, no needs for export, just experimenting? Well I can tell you: I'm happy to live here with all those innovative brewers because they have to be that inventive to make wonderful beers that sell. Because of that the offer of different kind of beers is tremendous.
Do you Dutch folks use the word "craft" in describing these sorts of beers? Do you use the term "craft beer"? Cheers!
In addition to Jack's question, I've a few. Of these styles, how many are relatively new to the beer scene there? Do the Nederlanders have a tradition of brewing other styles from other countries because of their importance in trade historically? What are your favorites?
I'm going to butt in! I will be in the Netherlands Sunday & Monday of this coming weekend to do the tulips and stay in AMS. Any good breweries I should check out?
There's really not many breweries you can visit, but in Amsterdam t IJ is nice. The most important styles here (besides macro lagers) are Belgian style ales (Duvel, Chouffe, t IJ) as this is what most people drink in bars. We call this 'speciaal bier' (special beer) te differentiate from pils (the word used for most lager styles). There's also a strong focus on local beer, even if the beer is shit. A lot of stores and bars have their 'own' beer which is often a Belgian beer with a different label pasted on the bottle. But yes since a year or so you can buy IPA's and porters in every supermarket, and some have quite a nice range of stuff.
Butcher's Tear, Oedipus, 't Ij, two Troost brewpubs, Bekeerde Suster. I wouldn't bother with Bierfabriek.
There were plenty of English-style Ales and Stouts brewed in the 19th century. Heineken brewed a Stout until the 1990's. Thinking about it, I should get someone to brew the old Amstel and Heineken Stout recipes I have.
It my favourite of the 1911 Heineken set. I sent them the recipe, that was my involvement. I didn't realise that they'd served the beers at the NHC, the bastards. I would have stopped them being served there if I could have. They were supposed to go with my presentation, which was turned down on really, really dodgy grounds by someone with a grudge against me. If they weren't going to let me talk, the beers shouldn't have been served.
The breweries were there and I suppose they figured the NHC attendees would enjoy drinking these beers. I for one am grateful they were being served. I am sorry to hear about the 'politics' you ran into with last year's NHC. I would have enjoyed attending your presentation. The AHA is a bureaucracy and unfortunately it seems that 'politics' is frequently (always?) something that accompanies bureaucracies. Cheers!
I'm glad you enjoyed the beers. But without the context my talk would have given, they're just random beers.
