Yesterday, 17 April 2011, was the 13th annual Meibock Beer Festival celebrating traditional spring brews, held in the Haarlem neighborhood of Amsterdam. It was also an absolutely beautiful day outside; so what better way to spend a sunny Sunday then sampling different beers in a converted church? I’ll be honest, it was a little strange holding a beer festival in a converted church (especially since it was Palm Sunday yesterday) but other than that...what a great time! You even got a souvenir glass to keep or return for two Euro.
The festival was held from 1-8pm, we arrived at around 2:15 and the place was packed! The program was all written in Dutch (naturally) so unfortunately J and I couldn’t read it...and neither could our friend from Glasgow...but if we could have it was evident there was plenty of information about each brewery and the beers they had brought for sampling. There were 28 different breweries from all over Holland and Belgium, and even one from The States. Being that everything was written in Dutch we spent most of the festival wandering about aimlessly sampling random beers from random vendors because we had no idea what was what. I wish I could tell you more information about the beers and breweries but that language barrier got me again (And to be honest J got most our beers while L and I got pissed and chatted, but isn’t your BF supposed to get you and your girlfriends drinks?). However, as the only brewery from America that was represented I did make a special point to find Anchor Brewery from San Francisco and sample their Anchor Bock Beer. I’m not usually a dark beer fan but they may have just converted me. Not too heavy like Guinness the Anchor Bock has a smooth and rich flavor with a just hint a nuttiness. At one point we sampled a beer with 15% alc/vol...thankfully the glasses were smaller than normal so none of us fell on the floor after drinking it! All in all a great sampling of spring beers, with most of the selections being light, fruity, and refreshing. The perfect way to start off the spring!
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