Beer Tasting at Brouwerij de Molen

I was invited to a beer tasting event with dinner subsequently last month at ‘Brouwerij de Molen’ (literal translation: Windmill Brewery) in Bodegraven in the South Holland province. It was a business related event, and the brewery is really located inside a windmill.

The Netherlands is famous for beer brands such as Heineken, Amstel, Grolsch and Bavaria which I often call as water beer. I almost never drink them. So it was a big revelation for me to learn that the Netherlands actually produce real beers or something along the gastronomic beers that you can only find in Belgium. Well surprise, there is one in Bodegraven! And it looks like that the ‘Brouwerij de Molen’ is the only beer brewery in the Netherlands brewing the best beers in the country.

At ratebeer.com, an international site where beer enthuasiasts rate beers from all over the world, one can find a number of Brouwerij de Molen’s concoctions on the Top 50, even on the Top 10. Interestingly, it is the only Dutch brewery that entered the Top 50.

Anywho I don’t want to go into beer technicalities but what I do want to tell is that I enjoyed the beer tasting. I find the ‘Mooi & Machtig’ really grand. This is the cherry on top of the icing and can easily be served as an aperitif as well. Unfortunately, they only brew this beer for tasting and not for commercial production. All the beers we tasted had over 12% alcohol content which is pretty high for beer.

The nearest to taste to Mooi & Machtig is the ‘Bommen en Granaten’ so I bought four bottles to take home with me. The brewery has a little beer shop where consumers can buy their own locally brewed beers, as well as beers from other breweries around the world.

After the beer tasting we had dinner. I had the usual seafood but I did not take fotos of my starter and main, however I did for our desserts. Dinner was good and I would rate the food here 4 stars out of 5. And the beer? 5 stars of course =)

For the beer enthusiast, this is your place.

Brouwerij de Molen. Not joking but the brewery is in a windmill.

The beer guide telling us the history of the brewery.

The beer tasting starts!

We tasted 3 types of beers. The first one was a Stout (left foto). The second one was a Blonde or Pale Ale (see first foto at the top of this entry). The third one is the Mooi & Machtig, the most impressive (right foto).

Before dinner was served we were led to the little beer shop:

Brouwerij de Molen also sells other beers, imported beers.

I bought four bottles of Bommen & Granaten.

Then dinner was served and I had a pint of stout to go with it:

This was really good.

No fotos of the dinner except the desserts. Here is mine, a bavaroi tart with ice cream and melon... could not finish it.

The others had chocolate muffin with warm chocolate inside and some ice cream and melon.