Nederlands bier: stijlen, brouwerijen en soorten

The Netherlands once brewed more beer than it drank, and sold the rest to half of Europe.

The century of Haarlem and Gouda

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Haarlem, Gouda, Delft and Amersfoort were brewing towns of real weight. Around 1480 Gouda held more than three hundred breweries in a town of under ten thousand people.

Beer was not a pleasure then but a staple: water could not be trusted, and everyone drank beer, children included. Ordinary table beer carried almost no alcohol.

Why hops changed everything

Before hops, beer was seasoned with gruit, a herb mixture built on bog myrtle. Towns and bishops held the sole right to sell it, which made it a tax in all but name.

Hopped beer from Hamburg kept longer, cost less and escaped the gruit monopoly. When the Dutch towns switched, the gruit lords lost their income and fought back for years.

The collapse

Of those hundreds of breweries, fewer than fifteen were left by 1980. Pilsner from a handful of corporations had swept the rest away, and the word speciaalbier barely existed.

What happened next

From 2010 onward it moved fast. The Netherlands now counts more than nine hundred breweries and contract brewers, and almost every town has one.

Per head of population that makes it one of the most densely brewed countries in Europe.

How to use this guide

Every style has its own page with colour in EBC, alcohol, bitterness in IBU, flavour profile, season and the glass that goes with it.

The tiles below show the real colour of the beer. Filter by colour, strength or bitterness and you see at once what belongs together.

 

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