A Day at Oudaen

On warm sunny days the Oudegracht is as busy as a mall the day before Christmas. Tourists in and on boats, yachts, water bikes, canoes, surfboards. Anything that can float on water and pass underneath the many bridges.

It is never boring when I stand outside waiting to give a brewery tour at Oudaen. The canals in Utrecht runs a few meters below street level. But where in other cities there is only water and a street above, Utrecht has a canal and a terrace next to it, leading to the doors of over 700 cellars. Four meters above me people walk on the streets with their shopping bags, on their way to eat something.

On a nice warm day people sit outside on both levels. Staff walks around bringing beers, other drinks and food. Inside in the huge grand café it can at times be empty when it’s nice out, but around dinner time people pour in for dinner. Five tasting glasses with different Oudaen beers on a wooden paddle are served at different tables. The waiters offer a short description of a dubbel, or explain what hops are used in the special summer ale.

In a small separate room a group of young women enjoy a high tea surrounded by pink balloons. One wears a tiara. A few levels up a group is enjoying a dinner after finishing a conference in the theater room. It’s much better than the members of stag parties staggering from a party barge into the restaurant, slurrily asking to use the bathroom. An unfortunate byproduct of these warm sunny days.

And I look up. The ‘city castle’ that is Oudaen towers over its neighbors. It had done so for almost 750 years. Back then a member of the wealthy and influential Zoudenbalch family also looked up and envisioned a fortified house for his family. A house showing their wealth, but also defending them from other important families in Utrecht. After the Zoudenbalchs other families moved in, until it became a house for the elderly, which it stayed until well into the 20th century. Since the 80’s it is what it is today. A grand café/restaurant with in the basement one of the oldest craft breweries in the country.

A brewery that started in 1990, which makes it one of the oldest ones still operational. They started with the then newer Belgian styles like wit, tripel and dubbel. In the decades since beer tastes changed, styles came and often went away again. Yet beer drinkers have always found their way to the castle on the canal and the beers brewed in the cellar. They did so in the early nineties, they do so in 2022.

And this is what I tell the guests. History of the building, what beer is, how beer is made it. Anything you can expect from a brewery tour. I can do brewery tours all over the country. But standing in front of the copper kettles in the basement of a 750 year old building, looking out over a busy canal in one of the Netherlands’ nicest cities… nothing beats that.

Website Oudaen

Brewery Tours at Oudaen

Bierverbond, uniting lager lovers

In a previous article I mentioned the rise of German (style) beers in the Netherlands. Bars like Café Brecht, Taverno Willi Becher and In de Wildeman are at the forefront in Amsterdam, while Boot 122 is serving great things in Utrecht. Occasionally a brewery here will brew a German style beer. Othmar has an almost perfect rauch and Amsterdam based Butcher’s Tears released a great Bavarian lager last year called the Fluiter, easily one of my favorite new beers of 2021. They are organizing a Czech lager festival in April too.

But the beer landscape in the Netherlands is still a desert when it comes to breweries who focus almost exclusively on bottom fermenting beers. One oasis in this desert is a brewery called Bierverbond, Beer Union. In a flood of Double Dry Hopped New England India Pale Ales and stouts featuring the entire pâtissier section of the supermarket, it is good to see some going into a completely different direction.

Beginnings

Bierverbond is a two man team of Theo Verriet and Gert Hoff. Bierverbond is not (yet) their regular day job. Theo works at a bank doing IT four days a week. Gert used to work in IT as well owning several companies, but has sold all of them and retired early. His days are now filled with golf, grandchildren and beer.

It all started when Theo got a simple homebrewing kit from Dutch store Xenos. A first attempt led to unexpectedly good results. Two further attempts however were not so successful and this put Theo onto a path of discovery figuring out where exactly in the process things went wrong. This search expanded his knowledge of brewing.

Theo (L) and Gert (R) hard at work. Brewing is mostly cleaning.

Theo and Gert are in fact brothers-in-law. At a family party they found out they both liked beer, and that they also liked the same styles and decided to work together brewing beer. Through the Amsterdam based homebrewers collective De Bierkaai they perfected their skills and started to commercially release their beers, starting with the New Amsterdam Pilsner.

In my years writing about beer I have met many IT-professionals turned brewer. According to Theo there are definitely comparisons between IT and brewing. If there is something not correct in a beer you go back into the process and try and figure out where the mistake was made. Just as you would in a computer program where if something doesn’t work you look for the bug, and try and correct it.

Their IT background returns in their embracing of open source systems. This means their recipes are no secret and anyone can use them. It also fits in with their Beer Union philosophy: beer unites people.

Professional brewing

Theo and Gert found a small space in Heemskerk and set up a brewery installation which is perfect for small batches. Their core range is brewed at Huttenkloas.

It also storage for their beers and some other local breweries. During Covid they had success selling their beer online and also helped other breweries with webshop activities.

These styles and the others in their range are as I said rare here. That the beers are not some funny experiments can be seen in the number of awards that they have won so far. And not only for one of their beers, but for many of them. That they have not yet added a Dutch Beer Award to their cabinet of prizes is because they brew styles so uncommon here that there is no competition, and therefore not a fair contest.

Future plans

They have been working hard on a series of beers that will be released in April. A tour along six different German cities and their signature beers: Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Cologne/Köln, Weimar, München/Munich and Bamberg. The labels for the city themed beer have landmarks from those cities most people will recognize. The Allianz Arena and BMW HQ for Munich, the Gehry Buildings in Düsseldorf for example. They will be released in a good looking box so you can buy all at once.

I tried some of the beers on my visit and especially the rauch (Bamberg) was a very nice beer. I also liked the Baltic Porter which might be discontinued. The name of the beer, Vladimir, might have something to do with it.

There will be some restyling. The labels have always been tight and monochrome and this will stay. But now white on black instead of black on white. The XXX, the seal of Amsterdam, will be deleted too. O.K. if you are in Amsterdam but in other parts of the country often a reason not to drink it.

Release

The aforementioned German city box will be a released at Taverno Willi Becher on April 23. A fitting location. Let’s hope the beertypes they brew become more popular. So put away your cranberry banana cake orange stout and drink a schwarz by Bierverbond.

Bierverbond Website

Bierverbond on Facebook

Bierverbond on Instagram

Oproer: Rising from the Ashes

For several years the CAB building next to the Zuilen trainstation in Utrecht was a destination for (vegan) beer lovers. It was here that Oproer had their brewpub and vegan restaurant, doubling as a brewery in the first two years. A quick history lesson for those who don’t know: Oproer started as the combination of breweries Rooie Dop and Ruig. Since this fusion it has steadily been building a name for itself. The vegan restaurant won an award for best vegan restaurant in the country. When they started sending in beers to competitions, the beers also started winning prizes. Since a few years they started a sour program as well with great success. A kriek winning awards twice in a row at the Dutch Beer Challenge for example. But their Session IPA and Double Oatmeal Stout won as well, showing the wide range of what they can make.

Things were going fine until the disasters.

First that one disaster that affected all of us. Oproer, like all bars and restaurants, had to close its doors after corona hit. They frantically set up a webshop to try and sell at least some bottles. And with great success, sales were better than expected. Over the summer the bar could open again. But with the regulations they could never be at full capacity.

Then the number of covid cases rose rapidly and they had to close. Again. And this time this also meant letting go of the entire staff.

And then another disaster hit.

On a Monday night in January a fire broke out in a wooden floor storage at the other side of the building. The fire was huge and the smoke went under the roof and ended up in the Oproer brewpub. Though nothing was burned or broken the smoke damage was so extensive that everything was useless, covered under a layer of poisonous soot. It was clear that it would be a very long time before anything could start here again.

But having their own place to serve these beers to the public is what they wanted the most. So the search commenced to find a new place. And they found one on the ground floor of a completely new structure in Utrecht Overvecht.

The new space is going to be vast, twice the size of the old pub and that was already roomy. Beer is supposed to flow out of 20 taps. Above them are hundreds of apartments are planned. Downtown Utrecht is only about 10/15 minutes away. The Overvecht Trainstation is also relatively close.

They have been socially and environmentally conscious from the start. This will come back in the beercafé. Most of the construction materials inside will be from recycled materials. And because the room has several areas different designers can make something.

It has to be more of a beercafé than the old place ever was. A big bar in the middle of the room and a lot of sitting and standing places to enjoy a cool Refuse/Resist or sour Kriek. Different sections will have different looks, as to not make it too much of a colossal space but with things to explore.

It is a completely new and bare structure. Even the electricity cables and watermains have to be installed. Because they don’t have a few hundred thousand euros lying around and insurance only covers a small part after the fire, they opted to try the often used method of crowdfunding. On October 6th the reached the goal of € 300.000 for the new bar. They are now looking for an additional € 75.000 to improve and expand the brewery. So if you want to help out with the Oproer resurrection go to their page at CrowdAboutNow.

The plan now is that they will get the key to the new place in October. With any luck the bar can open around February 2022.

Oproer needs to continue being the presence that they were in the Utrecht beer scene, and the new beercafé is just that. I myself can’t wait to see what it will be like in 2022.

Useful Waste: Pieke Brood Bier

In 2020 worldnews was dominated by corona and its effects on society. The beer world was hit hard with bars and brewpubs closing in large parts of the world for a long time.

But there is a darker cloud that hangs over everything: our rapidly warming earth. A lot of things that we humans do are destroying the earth: gas powered cars, flying all over when a train will do, eating too much meat, cutting down forests… I can go on for a while. If the rest of the world would live like we do here in the West, we would need three earths worth of resources.

The beer world is trying to do their part by becoming more sustainable. Solar energy on the brewery, energy sufficient equipment, better produced ingredients and distribution with electric trucks are just a few examples. The grain left over after mashing often goes to animals who will eat the still very nutritious stuff. Sometimes bakers bake bread with the grain. Anything better then throwing it away in the trash.

In the Netherlands some breweries have started interesting projects to become more sustainable. Projects that deserve more attention. Attention I want to give them in a series about people in the Dutch beer world trying to do their part. In episode 1: Pieke Brood Bier. I spoke to founder Laura Nieboer about this interesting concept.

Who are they?

Pieke Brood Bier (Pieke Bread Beer) is part of the start-up Innowastion, a company trying to ‘give waste value’. Innowastion was started by Laura Nieboer after graduating from Maastricht University. Maastricht is where they are also based. It is now a three woman team with the addition of Karlijn and Joanna.

Waste Beer?

So how do they do fight waste with beer? Laura:

“It all started early 2018 when I realized how much bread we throw away in the Netherlands. We throw away around 12 whole loaves of bread per person per year. Knowing that so many people worldwide struggle to get (good) food I felt shocked by this statistic. As bread has a short shelf life due to its high water content, there are not many things you can do with bread. I wanted to show people the potential of food ‘waste’ beyond the obvious, such as making croutons or breadcrumbs out of it. Somehow, I made the connection between bread and beer, which was the start of the Pieke Broodbier adventure.“

“A friend and the internet taught me how to brew beer at home. After testing many batches, we finally had a nice beer. Taking a bit of a risk I decided it was time to brew it commercially at a local brewery here in Maastricht. We started with a batch of 300 litres, but soon due to its almost immediate success, we scaled up to 600 litres and later to the 1000 litres batches that we currently run.“

2020 saw the release of two batches of 1000 liter. They plan to brew at least that much in 2021 with maybe one batch more. If the bars can open again soon there is more chance of this.

Bread

Whenever they brew, at nearby Fontein brewery, they collect bread that would otherwise have been thrown away. Because of the many types of bread that they pick up every batch of Pieke Brood bier is slightly different every time. But this is something they know is part of the experience and adds a little extra. The beer as it is currently can best be described as a blonde beer or a golden ale.

Where to get it

For now Pieke Broodbier is for sale in some local (Maastricht) shops, bars and restaurants. They also supply three local markets every week. These markets are a good way to have direct contact with fans and customers: “An observation I can share from interacting with people at markets is that especially older males think our beer is not dark enough for their taste haha. They generally ask us why we brew an ale and not something stronger. Overall, the reactions we get are positive especially if people realise the positive impact they are making by buying and drinking Pieke Broodbier. “

Future

Development continues on new beers and drinks. They are this year working on a new types of beers, often in collaboration with other parties. So who knows , this year we might see a new Piekebrood beer.

But Innowastion won’t focus on beer alone. The plan is to introduce new drinks made with waste this year. This has led to a name change. It is now Pieke Drinks, Pieke Broodbier will remain the name of the beer. So keep checking their social media channels for more.

She is not far enough yet to have Innowastion be a fulltime job. When it was founded she was still working on her masters, which she got at the end of 2020. Innowastion has not attracted investors or government help yet. They did win a Maastricht Student Entrepreneur Award in 2018 and got help from a business coach to set things up. But for now it is all own money. The profit from the first batch financed the second and so Pieke Brood Bier can be made.

The dream is that in the coming years Innowastion can be full-time activity. But as with many startups, the finance will have to come first.

So whenever you are in Maastricht seek out this wonderful initiative. We all need to do our part to combat the climate crisis, and why not enjoy a beer in the process?

Links:

Innowastion Website.

Piekedrinks.

Pieke BroodBier on Facebook.

And on Instagram.

One Love?

Racism in the craft beer community is real. Like in the rest of the world it should be confronted whenever it is seen and called out for what it is. We do not tolerate racism in any form and want to play our part in confronting it and making the beer a place where everyone is welcome. It’s time to listen, learn and change. One Love.

Nice sentiment in these troubled times isn’t? This is a statement from Oedipus released on their Facebook page on June 8^th. It is great that people in general and breweries specifically take a stand, something that should happen more in Holland. And racism in the craft beer community is real, just look at the brewers who still stand behind the outdated tradition of Zwarte Piet.

However that this statement is coming from Oedipus is surprising to say the least. Last year Oedipus announced that they were partnering with Heineken. Heineken’s track record on racial matters, especially in Africa, is one of contempt for human rights for decades.

Some examples, taken from Olivier van Beemen’s excellent Heineken in Africa:

During the genocide in Rwanda Heineken did not stop brewing. In fact its business went quite well. Many of the participating in the ethnic slaughter were drinking beer from Heineken

When the white South African installed apartheid in the early 60’s some international companies left but Shell and Heineken stayed. There was backlash against both throughout the decades. Shell had to deal boycotts and slashed hoses at gasstations. But Shell and Heineken could make more there then it lost so it stayed. In fact it was urged to senior people within the company “not to act in opposition to the letter/spirit of Apartheid”.

In the decade when many African countries gained their independence Heineken used the chaos and lack of government oversight to funnel their profit to banks in Switzerland, thereby paying hardly any tax. They also wrote the alcohol tax code in some instances.

In Cambodia girls were used to promote the beer, something that turned into indirect prostitution. They were harassed, forced into having sex with customers just to sell beer. This has also happened in Africa. Time and time again Heineken vowed to do something about it and some steps were made but the problem existed. Research was done, by an intern no less. Parliament tried to force Heineken to stop doing this, Dutch bank ASN pulled it from their investment funds and Bill Gates stopped working with Heineken in Africa.

In 2018 it was still going on. Can you imagine this happening in Europe and with white beer promotion girls?

I am ok with a company making a business decision to join forces with a multination like Oedipus has done with Heineken. But in doing so you are also saying you are fine with their business practices. If you were not you should find another, better suited partner to do business with. Much of Heineken’s dealings in Africa stem from a deeprooted racism since the time they started there. Or as someone in Heineken said “the negro stands, no matter how you think about it, on a much lower step on the cultural ladder than the Javanese”. Attitudes have changed somewhat since this was said in the 1950s but Heineken has kept doing its business in more than dirty ways, as their dealings in Rwanda and South-Africa have shown. And Oedipus, you didn’t really help the world become a better place when you combined with Heineken. Did you confront Heineken or was the bag of Euros mightier?

If you want to read more about Heineken in Africa read Olivier van Beemen’s excellent book, or start with his equally excellent piece in The Guardian.