Amsterdam – Part Two – allmyfriendsarejpegs®

Here’s the second set of pictures from Amsterdam a couple of weeks ago, though it feels a bit odd writing this from a balcony in Athens.

As Grace said to me when we got to Greece, it’s strange going from one place to another, as the two cities are worlds apart.

This particular Sunday we headed over to one of Amsterdam’s only (if not the) only micro brewery on the east side of the city.

The brewery itself sits next to a large windmill. Despite the two not being connected at all, everybody knows the brewery because of its location.

Rather bizarrely, the place didn’t open until 2pm. Arriving just before, we sat outside and waited, whilst a hodge-podge queue of tourists queued up, or repeatedly tried the various doors, as if everybody was just standing around for the sake of it.

Clearly, this place was on the list for visitors to come see.

Once the doors opened and the initial rush died down, there were some nice beers on tap. The styles were pretty traditional, but varied.

We sat and sampled all of the ones that came on tap, with the prices pretty reasonable for what was on offer.

The plan had been to sit and spend the whole afternoon lazily drinking beer and eating, but it didn’t quite work out that way, which was a shame.

Whilst it was a nice enough place, and the beer was tasty, it wasn’t anything particularly spectacular. If you’re used to a good supply of craft beer where you’re from, this won’t be anything too impressive.

In terms of food, the offering was really poor. The cheese was just bog standard gouda that could be found in any supermarket, and there was no bread, burgers, or anything that you might expect to find in a trendy brew-pub. Instead, we ordered what was advertised as ‘smoked sausage’, only to find that it was chunks of completely raw meat.

I’m no snob, and wouldn’t mind traditional raw meat if that’s what was advertised, but the descriptions (in English) were misleading. We watched as others made the same mistake we had… even the pigeons didn’t like it.

Overall it was pretty disappointing. It seemed like they had gotten used to a captive audience of tourists, as well as occupying the position of the only known craft brewery in the city, so were complacent, or even a bit pretentious at times. Given that the quality of beer in Amsterdam is pretty good in general (if you like real German/Belgians), I couldn’t see myself rushing back, or even suggesting that other people go out of their way to visit.

The alcohol did have the desired effect in the end though.

Scotland were playing just over the border whilst we were there, and so we ended up meeting up with these goons from back home:

They made me wish I had brought my kilt. As well as how it looks when worn casually, seeing it in a foreign place just gave the whole thing even more impact.

They also introduced us to FEBO – a sort of cheap, even faster fast food outlet, where you insert coins into a slot and take burgers and other unusual things out of mini microwaves.