Oct 07, 2026
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Dutch Beer Culture Explained
Why that foam scrape isn’t a mistake—it’s Dutch tradition at its finest.
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Love Netherlands
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Dear Netherlands,
There’s a version of the Netherlands that tourists rarely find. It’s in Jordaan on a Saturday morning, where the Noordermarkt smells of fresh bread and old cheese. It’s in Utrecht, where canal-level wharfs have become the most beautiful cafés in Europe. It’s in Delft, where Vermeer’s light still falls across the same brick walls.
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Photo by Dave Visser on Unsplash
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In today’s email:
- The Love Netherlands Guide № 007: Dutch Beer & Brewing
- At The Café — Café De Jaren — Amsterdam’s Light-Filled Reading Café
- Around The Web — Dutch Healthcare for American Retirees: Everything You Need to Know (2026), The Dutch-American Homecoming: From New York to Old Holland, The Love Netherlands Guide № 006: Gezelligheid + more
- From Love Netherlands — Rotterdam Netherlands: Complete Guide to Things to Do and See
- Dutch Food You Will Love — Bitterballen — The Small, Dangerous Joy of the Dutch Evening
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The Love Netherlands Guide № 007: Dutch Beer & Brewing
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When a Dutch bartender pulls your lager, scrapes the foam flat with a little spatula and hands it over with two fingers of white head still on top, that is not sloppiness — it is the house style, and arguing about it is practically a national pastime. The Netherlands sells pale pilsner around the world, yet behind the big green bottles sits a Trappist abbey brewing under papal-era rules, a brewery working inside a 400-year-old windmill, and a craft scene packed into converted churches. This is Guide № 007 in The Love Netherlands Guide series. Get the Full Collectible Guide (Free PDF) Dutch Beer & Brewing — in a beautifully designed, printable booklet. The Love Netherlands Guide № 007. Download The Love Netherlands Guide № 007 (Free PDF) From Abbey Cellars to Global Lager Brewing in the Low Countries goes back to the medieval period, when monasteries and town breweries made beer that was…
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At The Café
Café De Jaren — Amsterdam’s Light-Filled Reading Café
Café De Jaren on the Nieuwe Doelenstraat is a wide, two-storey grand café with a sun-drenched terrace built right out over the Amstel. It opened in 1990 in a former bank, and the high ceilings, white walls and stacks of newspapers in twelve languages give it the feel of a public reading room with espresso. Locals come for breakfast with the FT, for long afternoon meetings, and for the canal-side terrace where on summer afternoons every chair faces the water. The kitchen does proper meals all day, the cake counter is generous, and nobody minds if you stay three hours.
👉 Visit the café
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Around The Web
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From Love Netherlands
Rotterdam is not Amsterdam. That is the first thing to understand — and the best reason to visit. Love the Netherlands? Join our free newsletter for hidden Dutch gems → inlovewithnetherlands.com/subscribe Where Amsterdam enchants with Golden Age canal rings and crowded bridges, Rotterdam dazzles with bold modern architecture, a thriving food scene, and the energy of Europe’s largest and busiest port. Flattened almost entirely by German bombing…
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Photo: Shutterstock
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Dutch Food You Will Love
Bitterballen — The Small, Dangerous Joy of the Dutch Evening
A bitterbal is a small, crumb-coated sphere of slow-cooked beef ragout, deep-fried until crisp and served burning hot with a dish of sharp Dutch mustard. Walk into any brown café on a weekday evening and you’ll see them on half the tables. The rules are: wait two minutes so you don’t burn your mouth, bite off the top to let the steam escape, dip in mustard, eat in two bites, and order another round. Their name has nothing to do with being bitter — it’s from the old Dutch word bittertje, an aperitif served at pre-dinner hour. The name stuck long after jenever stopped being the drink of choice.
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