Recommended Dutch beers

I was asked to make a list of my favourite beers…

For regular drinking, it is never a bad idea to go into a supermarket and to take a box of Gulpener Biologisch (organic). Gulpener harvests all their ingredients close to the brewery. They have three variants, a regular Pilsner, a Weizen and an IPA. Recently I drank their organic Pilsner again after choosing mostly their IPA variant, and realised that it is close to defining Pilsner. Their IPA is also never disappointing, and one that stands above many of these cooler smaller fancy (read more expensive) IPA’s.

Then what other beers? Amsterdam itself has lots of smaller breweries, biggest of the smallest is Brouwerij ’t IJ. Try Columbus for a heavier one (9%; IJ is the name of the river through amsterdam, which is in pronounciation not different from Dutch ‘ei’, which translates to egg, hence all kinds of twists around egg, egg of columbus etc. Troost has small breweries accross town, I like their Bock bier (all their beers are organic) and saison. Eeuwige jeugd is another one from Amsterdam, and there Belhamel is a nice IPA. Haarlem (city close to Amsterdam) has Jopen (most known for their IPA) and Uiltje (try El Patron (another IPA) or Apfelstrudel (a Bock with vanilla, cinnamon & apple :)) which make proper beers :)

Waterland brewery (to be found in organic stores) has a special meaning to me as it is named after the area I prefer to run; countryside north-east of Amsterdam. Go for Gouden Bocht (a blond beer named after the most expensive prestegious part of the Amsterdam Canals (part of the Herengracht)

As for Heineken owned nice brewers, Texel’s Skuumkoppe (the dunkel-weizen recommended by Vasyl) is definitely not bad :)… Oedipus is another cool brewery, but now also fully owned by Heineken sadly. They still have their funky branding though, and nice beers: try Mannenliefde, a nice Saison. Or thai thai, which is a spicey beer (it has peppers in it). But besides being a mega-corp, Heineken is also still active in Russia, does all it can to evade taxes, so perhaps skip their beers alltogether.

Gulpener, Troost, Waterland are best bought in an organic store, although Gulpener is often available in supermarkets as well.