De Molen

Two weeks ago, when the high was only about 50 degrees, my friend Kat and I attempted to ride bikes from Utrecht to Bodegraven to visit and tour De Molen, which is considered by the beer snob community to be (by far) the best brewery in the Netherlands, and among the best breweries in the world. We took a wrong turn, ended up riding 15km south instead of west, and my hands turned numb from the low temperatures. So, as the kids think is oh-so-cool to say these days: epic fail.

Today’s clear skies and warm temperatures seemed to offer a good opportunity for a second attempt. Kat and I, along with Johannes and Yoel (both of whose names are pronounced starting with a “Yo”) took off from Utrecht with a slightly better idea of the route.

And, for a second consecutive weekend, I took part in a bike ride that did not end in failure. The 30 kilometers (~19 miles) passed easily on a mostly flat trail that lazily ran along lazy canals and rivers in which lazy Dutch people were lazily swimming or boating. The four hours of sun (round trip) felt warm and baked my skin a bit, but it didn’t quite have the strength sapping power of the dry desert air.

Typical scene on the bike trail from Utrecht to Bodegraven.

Lambs deciding whether to run from cyclists.

Lambs running from the intimidating cyclists.

Bird and babies in Bodegraven.

The "Phoenix" building in Bodegraven.

The path leading through Bodegraven to the brewery.

The brewery tour was much like any other. Well, except that there was no “tour” part – just one of the employees talking to the four of us in a room for about 40 minutes. He led us through the history of the brewery, he gave us a standard talk about how beer is made (virtually the same talk I’ve heard at places like Sam Adams, Stone, Deschuttes, Full Sail, Bridgeport, Oskar Blues, and Marble), and he gave us tastes of a summer IPA, a double IPA, and an imperial stout, each of which were on tap at the restaurant. He also shared the amusing anecdote that Heineken uses more volume of cleaning agents every day than De Molen produces beer in a month. And he shared that De Molen was rated as the 80^th best brewery in the world a few years ago, then rose to 50^th, and now is in the top 20 (I’m estimating these numbers on memory of his talk, and he was estimating them based on his memory).

He also told us that De Molen hand bottles their beer, or at least their 75cl beers. I was surprised at this – what must the labor costs be of hand bottling, and what must you lose in production volume? Before I could ask, he shared that the brewery has an “agreement” with an agency that looks after autistic teenagers. That’s right: the brewery uses autistic children to bottle their beer. He explained that it’s the type of repetitive task that autistic individuals enjoy and are good at. Part of my thought that this is the coolest thing I’ve ever heard on a brewery tour. Part of me was a little disturbed. But I walked away from it comfortable with the arrangement.

De Molden means windmill. And, sure enough, there is a windmill on top of the brewery.

Our tour guide.

The remnants of our three tasters, per person.

The shop within the brewery, with a wall of De Molen beers.

Danish beers in the brewery.

De Molen awards proudly displayed.

After the tour, lunch, and another beer, we hopped back on our bikes for the 30 kilometer trip back. So, in total, I got to cross a brewery tour off of my list, I got more sunlight on my skin in four hours than I did in all of November and December combined, and I survived 60 kilometers in total (30 of which coming after a turkey, bacon, and fried egg sandwich and beer).