Maand: maart 2020

Support your local brewer, especially in these strange times

On Sunday afternoon, March 15, the Dutch government took the unprecedented step of closing all restaurants and bars and to keep children home. What followed was a frantic hour-and-a-half to give customers their last meals and drinks before closing the door at 6 pm. This will last until at least April 6th although no one seems to believe things will open again a day later. Corona is here and it will stay for the time being.

That night instagram and facebook were full of pictures of unlit, empty bars. Chairs and stools on tables, not a customer in sight. The streets in Amsterdam and Utrecht, always busy with locals and tourists, are now mostly empty.

No customers means no income. The government is now trying to everything in its power to try and keep all businesses running. People will still be paid and businesses will not have to pay their taxes immediately. Banks are not asking small businesses to pay back their loans straight away but have halted this for 6 months. I will never vote for any of the political parties in the cabinet right now but they are trying to keep the country running. Sometimes it is a good thing to live in one of the richest countries in the world.

This governemt is also not standing in the way of any ideas to keep getting an income. Many breweries are now selling beer online or are driving around the city delivering beer. Or you can just drive to the brewery and buy it yourself directly from the brewery. This has to be done to keep things running, some breweries had 0 orders last week. If you don’t have bottles in a supermarket things are going to get very tough. Beer festivals have all been canceled until at least early May.

This crisis is going to change the world where we live in. We don’t know when it will be over and we don’t know how we are going to get out of this. But it is going to be naieve to think that in a year the same breweries and bars will still be around. Some tanks will fall dry and breweries will end operations.

And what can we do? As has been the mantra these last few years: support your local brewer! Bring your favorite bar to you! Some bars offer packages that they can bring to you, peanuts and games included. Order some beer at a local brewery and have them deliver it. The big guys will be fine once this corona thing is over (including Corona), but it is the smaller ones that will suffer. Support them now if you can. Let’s beat this together and keep beer culture alive.

I cannot visit places in the coming weeks, but I will see if I can still post things online now and again.

Take care my friends and hold on. Most of you will be fine, but you can seriously hurt others around you. And remember that the party that will happen once live has returned to normal will be epic.

As local as can get: Klinkert in Blokzijl

At the end of February I spent a few days in Blokzijl. Blokzijl is a tiny town in the region where the provinces Overijssel, Flevoland, Friesland and Drenthe come together. It is one of those Dutch towns built with a strategic purpose. It still has part of the old walls, now adorned with some canons and a view over the mostly reclaimed land. Once built to defend that part of the country against the Spanish troops or bishops from Germany with a hunkering for expansion westwards.

It then became a fishing town with a comparatively huge inner harbor from which the boats sailed to the Zuiderzee to fish for herring. It is also where my family has lived for centuries before my great-grandfather decided to leave Blokzijl and look for a brighter future for him and his family in Amsterdam. It was this fact that brought me here.

Deze afbeelding heeft een leeg alt-atribuut; de bestandsnaam is img_77891.jpg
The Brouwersstraat in Blokzijl

Like any town Blokzijl needed food and drink. Water was unsafe to drink so the brewers got the task to brew beer for the entire community, including the children. The brewers were all located in the Brouwersstraat, which yes, means Brewersstraat. But then the town lost importance, people left and other liquids replaced beer as the number one source of hydration.

And so it remained for decades.

Until 2018 when Grytsje and Kees Klinkert decided to start a brewery. Kees’ parents once owned a vegetable store in the Brouwersstraat so it seemed only logical to start one in this street. The building itself is old, very old. You can still see parts of the walls and roof from centuries ago. Apparently it was even a brewery once called De Zwaan (The Swan). Apart from the brewing installation it also houses a sort of tasting room and a small store selling local food stuff and a few other local beers.

The brewing installation is tiny, just 100 liter. They brew once a week and they can easily get rid of the 300 bottles in Blokzijl in the restaurants and supermarket. And the restaurants that serve the three Klinkert beers are good ones, like the Michelin starred restaurant Kaatje bij de Sluis, located a few doors down.

This is not their job. 300 bottles is not enough to make a living from for a couple with 4 children. Grytsje works as a caregiver for handicapped people while Kees is a car mechanic. This is a hobby which is not (yet) making money.

Klinkert is a great example of a small local business adding something to the community. And not with a beer that seems local because it was commissioned by a store or a restaurant or bar but by an actual beer brewed in the town. It adds something to a city like Blokzijl. It might not ever reach beyond the town limits, making it more special. We need more small local breweries like this all over the country. It makes visiting a new part of the country a bit more interesting to the menu. The big international breweries will still have a huge chunk of the market and smaller national breweries are also carving out their piece, but please support your local brewer. And it doesn’t get more local than this.

So if you do decide to visit the beautiful Blokzijl and it’s harbor be sure to visit the store/brewery when it is open. Check the openings times if you want to visit. If not go to a restaurant nearby that does have Klinkert beers.

Klinkert Bier & Delicatessen Website.

Facebook Page.