Bikes and Beers in Amsterdam

For a person who has been wedded to bicycle transportation for about 25 years, it's a wonder that it took me so long to visit Amsterdam, where nearly every resident of every age rides a bike in every kind of weather, without making too big of a deal about it. Well, I finally made my pilgrimage, and had a great time biking the canalside streets and parks of the central area on a clunky rented one-speed girl's bike with a flowered seatcover and chopper handlebars that let me lean back until I was almost horizontal.

The icing on the cake is that Amsterdam is also a fabulous beer destination, as I noted in previous posts about 't Arendsnest (my favorite place in Amsterdam) and Gollem's Proeflokaal.  I had a great beer time there even though I missed several of the "must-visit" beer establishments: bars In De Wildeman and Café Belgique, and bottleshop De Bierkoning.

I did make it into one excellent bottleshop -- De Gekraakte Ketel (the Cracked Kettle) -- across the alleyway from the original (and currently closed) Gollem's location. The picture above of the bicycle with the crate of Westvleteren empties is the Cracked Kettle's sandwich-board -- it would make a better picture if the front tire had air in it. The rambling split-level shop had a good selection of Dutch and Belgian beers -- I grabbed a bottle of Columbus strong pale ale from 't IJ brewery, and a bargain-priced 750 ml Cantillon Iris ($10.50). I inquired about Westvleteren based on the crate out front, but all they had in stock were a few 1996 bottles of the 12, priced (if I remember right) at €50 ($70) each.  Other geek-worthy beers were to be found there also, including some American offerings, and BrewDog's viagra-laced Royal Virility Performance.

Seeing as how Gollem's was closed, a clerk at the Gekraakte Ketel recommended a replacement bar for us: De Zotte Belgisch Bierproeflokaal. The jawbreaker "Proeflokaal" that you see in these bar names means "tasting room". It was a nice place on a quiet side street just outside the canal district. At a little after 4 PM on a weekday, we were alone in the place with the bartender, the pub cat, and some kids from across the street that came in to use the restroom. The cat became quite interested in the block of cheese that was coming out of the refrigerator below the bar, and hopped right up there for a taste. There was a good selection of Belgian bottles, and a few taps (6-10 if I remember right).

Another place worth mentioning is The Beer Temple, which bills itself as an American beer bar.  It's owned by the Arend family that runs the fabulous Arendsnest.  There are an impressive number of American beers on tap, from the likes of Great Divide, Rogue, Left Hand, Anchor, and other quality brewers.  In addition, there are a few Dutch and Belgian taps, and some lighter fare like Beck's and Hoegaarden.  Nice pubby atmosphere like 't Arendsnest, but the beer selection is wasted on an Oregon beer snob -- too much focus on stuff I can get cheaper and fresher at home.  One interesting thing is that the Beer Temple was offering 20 ml -- about two-thirds of an ounce -- of BrewDog's Sink the Bismarck for €8.50, or Tactical Nuclear Penguin for €7.50 ($12 and $10.50). The British gents in the picture had ordered shots of TNP in tiny beer steins and were generously sharing it with the other patrons.  We decided it had an herbal character, kind of like an Italian Amaro.  Whoa, that's an SPE of $1277.58 for Sink the Bismarck!  It's just a lucky accident that the picture shows a BrewDog "Beer for Punks" banner reflected in the window behind them.

The proeflokaals and bottle shops will keep you busy and well-beered in Amsterdam.  Supermarkets also had a few drinkable options on the shelf -- some La Trappe varieties and some widely-distributed Belgians like Duvel.  On our first night in town, I grabbed a couple of "lentebocks" off the shelf, since we wouldn't be leaving the apartment that night.  Grolsch's was sickly-sweet, a real struggle to get through, but a brewery called Hertog Jan had made a very nice, copper-colored maibock with the right balance of malt richness and lagered crispness.  It was packaged like a cheap supermarket brand with a few different beer styles, but it was a solid choice for the refrigerator shelf.

I'm glad I finally made it to Amsterdam.  Now I've got to find a way to get back there again.

't Arendsnest, Amsterdam

On our recent trip to Europe, I expected excellent beer during our 3 days in Belgium, but the most pleasant surprise to me was what a wonderful beer town Amsterdam is. I already wrote about Gollem's Proeflokaal, but my favorite pub of the whole trip was  't Arendsnest, a beer bar in the western canal district of Amsterdam that only serves beer brewed in the Netherlands.  It's not just the selection of 30 Dutch taps and scores of bottles that makes it a great place, but the cozy, comfortable digs and the relaxed atmosphere.

On our first visit, Carla and I had very little idea what to order.  The only familiar names to me on the taplist were La Trappe, which I figured is readily enough available in Portland, and Jan Hertog, which I had seen alongside Grolsch at the supermarket in the Jordaan neighborhood where we were staying.  Luckily in scanning the taphandles I noticed that the "Rook & Vuur" on the chalkboard was actually a smoked doppelbock ("Smoke & Fire") from De Molen -- possibly also available in Portland, but never on tap, and pretty pricey in the bottle.  Now we had to figure out something for Carla -- treading around the abbey-style ales that she doesn't usually like -- but a quick consultation with the bartender led to an excellent choice: Jopen Extra Stout.  The Rook & Vuur had just the right touch of smoke on top of a deep, complex beer.  The Jopen was a delicious, dark, roasty, creamy stout that arrived with a thick, tan head that stood up over the top of Carla's goblet.

In the picture at the top you can see a sink of soap suds and a sink full of clean water.  When you order a draft beer, the glass is washed and rinsed before being filled, then carefully submerged first in the soapy basin and then in the clean basin before being handed to you, to keep you from having any sticky beer on the outside of your glass.  Is this outside rinse after the pour the usual Low Country ritual?  Maybe we tended to order bottles more often at other places, but 't Arendsnest is the only place I noticed the rinsing ritual.

Carla went bigger with her next beer, a fantastic 2009 Imperial Stout from Dutch brewing collective SNAB called Czaar Peter; I went for something lighter with a satisfying malty amber called Roodborst (Redbreast) from De Snaterende Arend, which is the house label of 't Arendsnest.  In trying to pin down the parentage of those two beers for this post, I see that both of them were likely contract brewed at De Proef Brouwerij, whose distinguished-sounding name completely obscures the Dutch joke that it is merely The "Test" Brewery.  (While we're doing a Dutch lesson, I'll reveal that 't Arendsnest means "the Eagle's nest", and is a pun on the owner's last name -- Peter van der Arend.  The 't is a contraction of het, which is the definite article for neuter-gender nouns, though it beats me when you use het and when 't.  "De Snaterende Arend" means "the clucking eagle", according to this very detailed history of the place on the White Beer Travels website, and is a pun on the names of Arend and a brewer named Snater.)

More good beers were had on a second visit.  I pressed the light and hoppy Jopen Gerstebier into service as the beer side of a kopstootje, somewhat to the amusement of the Arendsnest bartenders, but I was a little disappointed that the shot of genever wasn't served in the tiny glass that gets filled up past the rim.  Carla continued her imperial stout mission with an Emelisse on tap.  I wasn't all that happy with my next beer, a low-gravity De Molen rauchbier called Geboren & Getogen ("born and raised").  I was hoping for something like Rook & Vuur's little brother, but they seemed to be totally unrelated; Geboren had some "band-aid" phenols that I didn't care for, and a tiny bit of sourness that didn't go well with the smoke for me.

I consoled myself for that beer disappointment with a taste of barrel-aged 3-year-old genever from Zuidam; as luck would have it the bar didn't have enough for a full shot, so I was compensated with a half shot of 5-year-old genever from the same distiller.  It was more along the lines of a whisky than a gin, but still pretty dry and with nice aromatics.  The 5 was much smoother than the 3, and that's what I'd get if I were having it again.  (By the way, It's Pub Night sponsor Master of Malt sells Zuidam 5 Jaar Zeer Oude Genever, including small samples.)  The evening was capped off with the Java Tripel from Holland's De Halve Maan brewery (not the one in Brugge).  Don't worry, it wasn't a coffee tripel, just a straightforward, decent abbey-style ale.

A little bit of snack food is available at 't Arendsnest, cheese or sausage trays and a few variations on the peanut -- I liked the crunchy corn-battered borrelnoten.  The pub is not terribly large, so I imagine it might get a little crowded, though we easily found spots at the bar on both of our visits.  If you have a large group and you want an introductory lesson on Dutch beer, 't Arendsnest takes reservations for guided tasting sessions that are held in a separate area in the basement, though you'll miss the ambiance and camaraderie of the ground floor.

'T Arendsnest is a knockout.  Don't miss it if you're in Amsterdam.

Session Beers? Or Smaller Pours?

On the plane back from Belgium last week, I read Andy Crouch's opinion piece in Beer Advocate entitled Thinking Small. In it, he discusses America's "Session Beer" movement -- the push for tasty, well-made beers that are nonetheless low enough in alcohol to allow drinking quite a few in a row.  The word "session" comes from the English custom of drinking many rounds of big pints of not-so-strong beer over many hours at a pub.

While Andy doesn't quibble with the worthy goal of having some good-tasting lighter beers available, he thinks that the Session label might be misleading, since most of us don't have the same pub-drinking culture as exists in the British Isles.  In his own words:

In adopting the session moniker as opposed to simply calling their efforts a campaign for lower-alcohol beers, these brewers face target consumers who are not given to long stints in the pub or hours of uninterrupted drinking. Our drinking culture is goal oriented: have a beer to accompany a meal or fill a short window of time after work and before a commute.

His article is a good read, check it out.

Reading it as I returned from vacation in Europe, it made me reflect on the beer-drinking culture I'd seen in Amsterdam and Belgium.  The beers were not low-alcohol -- that's a 10% Westvleteren in the picture above -- but serving sizes were generally very small:  often 25 cl (less than 8.5 ounces) or 33 cl (less than 11.25 ounces).  Instead of simply beating the drum for lower ABV beers, maybe we need to start calling for lower alcohol servings.  If it's a lighter beer, the serving can be larger; if it's a higher-gravity beer, serve it in an appropriate volume.

Now, I've been known to scream for Honest Pints almost as loudly as anyone.  In Portland, that started off more or less as a push for bigger glassware -- the 20-ounce glasses popular at several of the finer pubs in town.  In my mind, though, the emphasis should be on Honest, not Pint, which to me means draft beer is served in glassware with marked volume lines, as it is everywhere in Europe.  That way you know that you received exactly what you paid for.  So "smaller serving" does not contradict "honest pint" -- it just requires marked glassware.

What do you think?  Is it worth calling for smaller beers?  Or just smaller glasses?