Crawling through Amsterdam

With EBCU business concluded, Reuben and I made our way from Zwolle to Amsterdam with a bit of time to punch in before going home. I suggested the MoreBeer Tour, a visit to the four bars owned by Peter van der Arend with the promise of a souvenir t-shirt on completion. I had done it before, back in 2015, but the line-up had changed a little since then, and so had the t-shirt design, so I was well up for a re-run. And therefore we found ourselves as the first customers of Sunday afternoon at Arendsnest.

On the principle of never passing a beer with your pseudonym on it, I opted for Nut Job, a 10% ABV imperial stout from the generally-reliable Moersleutel. Peanuts are the ingredient that gives this its name but I can't say I found much evidence of them. It's a very dense black colour with a tan-coloured head. The aroma is medium-sweet, like aromatic tobacco. The flavour, however, is very sweet, loaded with vanilla and brown sugar. Only towards the end, when it had warmed up and I was nearly finished, did a tarry bitterness creep in. It's fine, and good hearty rib-sticking stuff, but I felt I deserved a more complex experience, given the specs. Oh well. Onwards.

It's a short walk along and across the canals to BeerTemple, also quiet but not completely empty. Over the last few years, MoreBeer has been marking various anniversaries with specially-brewed IPAs from Uiltje. For their 12th, it's Big Fat 12, a double IPA of 8.2% ABV. This is one of those old-style dense and sticky jobs, coppery orange in colour with a flavour that's part juice but mostly cordial. It just about gets away with it by adding some spicy hops which deliver a sufficient amount of balancing resinous bitterness, and there's an unexpected dash of coconut in the finish. So while it's viscous, it's not cloying, and rather enjoyable for that. Big Fat 5 remains the best of the series so far and, pleasingly, is still in production.

Opting to stay for another, I picked Fleur du Nord from the menu. This is ostensibly a saison, produced by Funk Factory in Wisconsin and came in a tiny measure for an un-tiny price. It's mixed-fermentation fermented, foeder-aged and infused with locally-sourced honey, finishing up at 4.5% ABV. It's clear and golden with a sharply sour bite at the outset. Venturing further, I found it very geuze-like. Maybe it didn't have quite the same level of wood and spice character but it's very characterful regardless, brimming with lemon zest and dry white wine. Were it not for the price I would have gulped it down and called for another.

Instead, we moved on. For the day-drinker, the MoreBeer Tour presents a dilemma at the half-way point. While the two central locations open at noon, the outliers make you wait until 4pm. We did some light shopping at Bierkoning and then repaired to De Brabantse Aap for a plate of bitterballen and a pint.

I don't have a review here of their witbier, Witte Antonia, brewed at the Bekeerde Suster brewpub which I haven't visited since 2009. The tall glass is an indication that this is wit with weiss overtones. The savoury herbal side is here but backed by generous amounts of bubblegum and banana. And that's your lot. It's hard to impress with a beer like this, but it achieves what it sets out to do in a perfectly satisfactory way. And more importantly, it killed the half hour before it was time to hop on a tram and resume the Tour.

The barman was still setting out the tables when we arrived at the next stop. This place was the Jopen Proeflokaal when I first ventured this way, and the last time I was here it was called 'Cause Beer Loves Food with BrewDog as the beer-brand-in-residence. Now it's "Mikkeller at Morebeer", though still the same delightfully poky little nook it always was.

We both opted for beers from Mikkeller's wild ale brewery, Baghaven. For me, Oud Sasughaven, another soured saison, this one blended with lambic supplied by Oud Beersel. It's 6% ABV and hazy yellow in appearance. The geuze dominates everything with typical flavours of zest and gunpowder for an all-round sour and spicy experience. It's lovely but I'm not sure what the benefit is, as against just drinking geuze.

Reuben went with one called Stevnsbær Blend 2, a super strong kriek of 8.5% ABV, pouring dark purple with a frothy pink topping. This one really takes you on a journey, starting sharply sour before turning rich and warm while still staying clean and brisk. The flavour offers buckets of funky farmyard headiness as well as sweetly dessertish red cherries. It's a beer to get lost in, offering something quite different to what the Belgian lambic houses do in this space. I would like to see more breweries being playful with mixed fermentation at this high level of quality.

On the next round I went dark again, picking Dark Humor Club from Estonian brewery Sori. There are a few different versions of this imperial stout; this was the Pedro Ximénez barrel-aged version. It's opaque black with a beige head and smells of café crème, all rich and sweet and roasted, with some raisin fruitiness, presumably from the barrel. The flavour begins as red vermouth then turns more stoutish, with gradually building chocolate and vanilla notes, finishing on a jolt of strong espresso. I'm definitely a fan of beers like this where the barrel character adds a twist but doesn't overpower the essential stout nature. It beats wading through the bourbon vanillins every time.

And for Reuben, something called Orgia Apocaliptica from Poesiat & Kater. It's an IPA, but brewed with maca root, a sort of South American ginseng. It's quite west-coast in its outlook, with a pithy bitterness on a caramel malt base. I guess it's the maca adding an extra dimension to this, a dry and tannic side, resulting in something that tastes a bit like a fruit tea. It's good, but nothing special. There are probably better ways to get your daily quota of maca on board.

Back to the tram, then, and our final stop was Craft & Draft where we claimed our t-shirts. Of all the breweries in all the world to find on the board here, one I didn't expect to see was Neder, the unassuming little inn in the Franconian backwater of Forchheim. Are they filling keykegs now? The beer was their schwarzbier, Schwarze Anna. Alas, a hearty clay mug of it was not an option and I had to make do with a tiddly glass. It's lovely, though. At 5.2% ABV it's more full-on than most of this sort, with a strongly astringent bitterness on top of the dark dry toast, and then a surprise but welcome blackberry tartness. The busyness of the flavour does perhaps suit it to the craft bar tippling environment, though I would make a courageous attempt at ripping through half litres of it too, given the choice.

But we had reached journey's end. We managed a farewell beer at Gollem before Reuben departed Centraal for Schiphol. I had a bit of time left in country however. And oh, how remiss of me: I haven't given you any bock today. I'll make that up in the concluding post tomorrow.