Recent Posts by Rick Kempen

OHIM: A Yellow Canary with a Red Star

Rotterdam is a beautiful city - no joking - and just got better with the opening of two brew pubs: THOMS Stadsbrouwerij and De Gele Kanarie (The Yellow Canary). As you may know I am a firm believer of this concept: in this day and age, local, accessible and small-scale businesses are a big thing ...

Survey quality, part three: quality of product and measurements

Dutch brewers is a diverse community, varying from one man operations to huge multinational companies. Respondents are all possible forms and shapes and the outcome of the survey is representative, given the 27% response rate. It means the results give a clear picture of how Dutch breweries view the subject of quality. In earlier pieces ...

Survey on quality, part two: the hygiene code and raw material

Dutch brewers is a diverse community, varying from one man operations to huge multinational companies. Respondents are all possible forms and shapes and the outcome of the survey as representative, given the 27% response rate. It means the results give a clear picture of how Dutch breweries view the subject of quality. In an earlier ...

Survey ‘quality with Dutch breweries’: part one, the numbers

Dutch brewers is a diverse community, varying from one man operations to huge multinational companies. Respondents are all possible forms and shapes and the outcome of the survey as representative, given the 27% response rate. It means the results give a clear picture of how Dutch breweries view the subject of quality. Remarkably the majority own ...

Survey on “Quality” with Dutch breweries

On My Life With Beer I have been writing about the quality of Dutch beer quite some times now. Quality is here defined as the basic, objectively measurable quality of beer produced by Dutch breweries, and has nothing to do with anyone’s personal taste preference. The incredible growth of the amount of Dutch breweries is ...

Fine dining with fine beer at Bar ALT

Finally - fine dining, paired with beautiful beers, can now also be done in Amsterdam. Copenhagen, San Francisco, Brussel and New York have been having it for years. Amsterdam did have a few places taking beer seriously: Lieve (now Spingaren) and Restaurant Dwars, where chef Jo Vaessen worked with local ingredients and dito beers. Perhaps ...