Every time we visit our family in The Netherland we volunteer at a charitable organization helping the elderly. It's been 14 years since I joined the organization, and I have enjoyed every single minute working with them. Once a year we do some activity with other volunteers, and you can say it's sort of a teambuilding. This year, we have visited a local brewery called Jongens van de Wit located in Den Bosch.
The idea was to do a beer tasting and a tour of the brewery. I don't drink alcohol and even when I did in the past I didn't enjoy beer, but I didn't want to spoil the fun, so I agreed to the plan. We were meeting our friends at 2PM, but we came to the city earlier as we had some chores to do there.
Once we were done, we had a quick lunch and walked towards the brewery. It's located outside of the city centre, and it took us about 30 minutes to get there. It was one of those rare sunny days, so we decided to take a walk. We left on time, and we were in no hurry, so we could take a moment to admire the majestic St. John's Cathedral with its tower overlooking the city. It's a large Gothic construction with beautiful intricate details all over its exterior.
After a while we reached the location. Initially, I had no idea where it was, but once we arrived I have realized that I was in the area a couple of years ago. I just didn't know there was a brewery here because it doesn't look like one from outside. The Jongens van de Wit brewery started in 2016. At that time the area looked very different. Today, it's a modern residential area, but before it was just grass fields. I think this complex is one of the first ones built here.
I thought we would do the tour first and then we would taste 1 or 2 beers, but I was so wrong. When we arrived we were led to our table, and the waitress told us that we would taste 6 beers, and at some point we would get picked up for the tour. Some people raised their concerns because they came by car, and 6 beers sounds like lot, but we were assured that these were small glasses. I don't know about you, but this isn't a small glass to me 😊
The brewery mainly sells their own beers, and I was excited to taste them even though I don't really like beer.
We started with light beers. They have lower alcohol percentage, but they are still stronger than many beers that you can buy in a grocery store. Each beer came with some explanation about its history and production.
This is the very first beer that was created in this brewery. It's called Virgin Blond, and it has its characteristic gold colour and light flavour without bitter beer aftertaste. I must say that I enjoyed this one.
This beer on other hand wasn't my cup of tea. It's called Paleiswater and it's brewed with mint and ginger, and it should have been somehow spicy, but to me it tasted a bit sour. I think I was the only one from our group who didn't enjoy it much.
After the second beer we were asked to walk up the stairs to the production side. I didn't pay too much attention to the place before, and I realized how cool it when I was walking up.
There are 5 large barrels placed in a small room. The beer is brewed on Wednesday, and every week they produce 1000 litres which they sell in the following week. The brewery is getting more and more popular, and the consumption is growing, so they are trying to find a solution to put one more barrel there. It's not so easy, as the site is tiny.
The owner explained the process of brewing, and told us that all the recipes are developed in house. They do use traditional recipes as base, but they always add something to make them different. It takes ages to develop a recipe, and many litres went to waste in the process of development.
The tour (is it a 'tour' when you stay in the same place and listen to the guide? 😊) lasted around 30 minutes, and the waitress brought us our third beer, so that we are not thirsty. It's called Paleiskwartier, and it resembles traditional (for me) beer. It is strong and bitter in taste. They say that it has a strong hop flavour.
After the tour we returned to our table to try the fourth beer. It's called Gerrit the Highwayman, and it was the last beer that I've tried as I had more than enough. They were getting stronger and stronger.
Its named after a dangerous highwayman who made this area unsafe in the 19th century. He was robbing farmers by dressing as an innocent woman to make his move, and then he would spend all the money partying with his friends. He was caught in Amsterdam and hanged. His last meal was brandy with sugar, so this beer is a bit sweet.
Last two beers that my friends tasted were Tripel H4 and Angry Maid. Apparently, they were very strong and bitter. I can imagine that because towards the end they became very chatty and relaxed.
While they continued with the tasting I have tried Belgian Blanche de Namur Rosée beer. Someone at the table next to ours was drinking it and I couldn't resist the colour. It's probably the best beer that I have ever tried because it doesn't taste like beer 😊 It has a low alcohol content, and it's summery, fruity, a bit sweet, simply yummy.
After more than 2 hours we were ready to leave, but we didn't want to part yet as we were having so much fun, so we went mini golfing in dark. I didn't have that much fun in a long time. I embraced my inner child and had the best time. And surprisingly, I wasn't too bad!
It's my first (and probably the last) contribution to #beersaturday, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I hope you had fun too.
See you next time!