As
most of the regulars are now tired of hearing, this month I moved from
Seattle, my home of 12 years (broken only by a largely forgettable year spent
at the University of Oregon in Eugene) to The Netherlands.
I’ll save the detail of the amazing beer selection in this part of
the world for another time (although, as expected, I already miss AIPA).
Suffice it to
say
that the selection of Benelux and German varieties is excellent in
even
a small provincial town like Enschede.
I
had not heard of Enschede until I looked it up on a map before applying
for my position back in May. It’s
not known for much. There used
to
be a thriving textile industry in this region of The Netherlands (known
as
“Twente”, though oddly that is not the name of any single province) but
that
died out by the 1960s. To replace
the lost industry, the country established a new university, one would guess
to prop up the concrete industry, out here in 1963.
The University of Twente is where I now work.
There was that terrible explosion in May of 2000, when a fireworks
warehouse in the center of town decided to put on a show (and render
uninhabitable 20 or 30 blocks of residential housing).
Across the street from that warehouse sits the larger of the two
Grolsch plants.
Most
beer enthusiasts in the United States know of Grolsch if only for the
cool
bottles. When I first started
homebrewing, in 1989-90, I acquired
a
couple cases. Looking back, I’m
not exactly certain how I obtained them, because I don’t recall drinking
that much Grolsch. I think I had
a friend who worked in a bar in Bremerton, Washington, who saved them for me.
Nonetheless, I suspect that Grolsch is known more for its bottles than
its
beer
among US beer geeks.
While
those bottles are certainly available here in Enschede, Grolsch is
more
commonly found in cans (500ml and 350ml sizes) and “standard” 300ml
bottles
(basically the same size as the 12 ouncers with which we Yanks are
familiar).
I have settled on the 500ml can as my container of choice for
Grolsch.
A four pack of these cans sells for f6.75 at the Supermarkt
across the street from my flat. Seeing as how one of the mantras of the
US
beer geek is “support your local brewery”, I think that it is appropriate
that
my first official review as a legal resident of The Netherlands is
of
my new local brewery.
