Someone asked me the other day how long I have been writing about beer. Some sleuthing online and rummaging through some old files leads me to believe that the first time I published something on what was then still the Dutch Beer Pages was ten years ago. Probably about Wispe. So this means I can celebrate my decade long beer writing anniversary!
Things have changed dramatically in this decade. In the beginning I could just send a couple of questions through email and get great answers back. Breweries then were often still one man operations and the brewers were often very enthusiastic about their craft and just very happy someone had shown an interest. For some I was apparently even the first interview. I remember some of the very first ones being Wispe and Vat 13. The former now has a great brewery in a church in their hometown Weesp while Vat 13 no longer exists. And these are two examples of how it has gone the last ten years. Almost all the breweries I interviewed either started their own brewery (many were gypsy brewers) or folded. Some of the most successful stories I wrote about for example are ‘t Uiltje, Bax, Rooie Dop (now Oproer), VandeStreek, Kompaan, Oersoep and Gooische. The better the brewer, the more passionate the replies I got.
Writing about beer has brought me to cities and towns I would never have dreamed of visiting. Every short trip or vacation became a trek to find local beer. And by looking for that beer I discovered a lot more in my own country as well. And made friends along the way.
Yet is was never my intention to write about the breweries alone. You can brew all you want but you need fans of your beer and they need to get the beer from somewhere. That is why I have always tried to also write about the bars and shops that sell the beer. They have also seen the changes happening.
The quality of the beer has gotten better significantly. The time of exploding bottles and weak beer seems to be mostly over. The standard of Dutch beer has gone up, but the influx of beer from other countries is bigger now as well. Every bar or restaurant I go to now has at least something local. Utrecht then was already a hub for great beer and it still is today. Other cities have also caught on but I am lucky to live between Amsterdam and Utrecht.
I have enjoyed writing and chronicling the Dutch “craft” beer revolution. I have put craft in quotation marks because I don’t really think this is the right term anymore. That is why you won’t see me use it a lot anymore. Another thing you won’t see me do is write about what I think of a certain beer. Flavor is something personal. A nicely made tripel or blonde might be great but I will likely never enjoy it as much as a double ipa or an imperial stout. I will leave that to others. My blog is not about me but about the great and varied group of people that has worked hard the last ten years to make beer into the multi million euro business that it is today.
And I will keep writing about it and inform you about the people and places that make up Dutch brewing. And in English so that everyone can understand what great beer we make here.
It has been a blast these last ten years, let’s add at least ten more.
Hop Culture Reference 