Visiting De Bierkoning (The Beer King)

For those of you who do not know my boyfriend Derek, he is one of the biggest beer snobs I have ever met. His "beerventory" contains over 100 beers. So perhaps it's no surprise he didn't trust me when I tried to convince him to go into a beer store in Amsterdam, De Bierkoning. Advertising hundreds of different beers, I figured we couldn't fail. And despite his apprehension, of course, I was right:

We were greeted by two floors featuring beers from all over the world. Our favorite find (a.k.a. the moment when Derek believed me) was when we found three beers from Short's Brewing Company, a brewery in the middle of nowhere in Michigan, that were only released AT the brewery three years ago -- a one time event. Yet this store thousands of miles away had many of each!

For fellow beer lovers, the Short's beers were: Aorta Ale, Abnormal Genius, & Ginger in the Rye.

The incredible beer selection at this store did not stop there. The #1 beer in the world right now, as rated by Beer Advocate, is the Trappist Westvleteren 12. Beers from that monastery are extremely hard to come by - the monks only brew the beer to make enough money to run the abbey, do not ship the beer, and let visitors only buy one gift pack (of 6 beers) each. Yet De Bierkoning had a crate of Trappist Westvleteren 8! (And it sounds like they often have 12s)

It is therefore unsurprising that, despite it being the first day of a three week trip to six different countries, Derek still bought several beers to bring back to the US.