[Jay]

You read the title right, next Sunday we're heading to Amsterdam for a very fleeting one day visit.

We finish work on the Saturday and fly out of Manchester at 7am on Sunday, we spend the rest of the day in Amsterdam and fly back home midday Monday (and back in work on Tuesday)

Even after all these years and many holidays Linda can still surprise me, we're sure to cram plenty into our day in the 'Dam 🇳🇱

Cheers
Jay 

[Trappist]

Wauw Jay,
One day !!!
That sure will be a very "intense" visit    Enjoy every second Jay & Linda.
Cheers,
Filip

[Jay]

Hi everybody

Well we're back from our whirlwind 24 hour trip to Amsterdam and what a fantastic day in the Dam it was.

We set off at 7am for our 1 hour flight to Schiphol airport and after retrieving our case we ventured downstairs to the underground train station and jumped on the train for our short 15 minute journey into the town centre (much like in Copenhagen) and finally a short taxi ride to our hotel and yet again Linda picked us an absolute belter...Radisson Blu, right in the town centre









Seeing as only 11am we decided to tick off the list of places to visit and items to pick up, so first off it was food and we visited to large central food market to pick up cheese, salami, local Rookworst sausage, Amsterdam pickled onions, Dutch mustard and more.

Now it's beer time and so after dropping our shopping off back at our hotel we made the short walk to our first bar, Beer Temple for a well deserved beer and some bar snacks of Spring Rolls and Bitterballen (this was our first time try Bitterballen and they were absolutely delicious)









It was whilst paying that we noticed a special offer they were running, a colab with three other local bars. Visit all 4 in one day and receive a free T-shirt and seeing as one was already on our to visit list we thought why not.

The map shows the best order to visit, ending at Craft & Draft as this is where you pick up your T-shirt from







Time for bar No2 (No1 on the list) Arendsnest...now I completely forgot to take any pics here 🫣 however I did remember to keep my receipt as proof of visit.

Bars 3 and 4 are a bit more of a walk out of town so we decided to visit another bar on our list first, a traditional brown bar with a strong Belgian theme - Gollem Craft Beer.

What a fantastic bar this was, easily one of favourites, it had 30 beers on tap and over 200 bottles and combined with that rustic feel is it any wonder we felt so at home.











Now back to the Morebeertour and the third bar Mikkeller at Morebeer









A Crème Brûlée Imperial Stout and Oktober Pretzel Marzen, both fantastic (bought a can of the Imperial Stout)




Beers paid for, receipt safely stored and even a stamp in our Mikkeller passport it was time for the 4th and final bar




Last bar of the tour and we're at Craft & Draft, this was quite the walk but that's not a problem




T-shirt winning beer, in fact we were given a T-shirt each






Bar snack of local cheese, crackers, Dutch mustard and those delicious Amsterdam onions




One last beer and this was possibly the best of the day, Van Moll - Trekdrop...9.5% Imperial Liquorice Stout, it was just loaded with black soft chewy liquorice 🤤




A taxi back in the direction of our hotel and just a few streets away was De Praal bar and brewery so that's next on our list




This is a large open plan bar split over 4/5 levels, we opted for their tasting plank before a delicious malty amber beer








Time for a bit more food and a visit to Amsterdams famous FEBO vending machines that serve hot food and a piping hot freshly made croquette was devoured followed by frites from Fabel Frites






Time to head back to our hotel and on our way passes a beautiful looking brown bar so popped in for our final drinks, this unassuming little bar proved such an unexpected hit with us both...maybe our favourite






Back at out hotel it was a nightcap of an Old Fashioned cocktail and Rose wine, what a most amazing and memorable day it had been





Cheers
Jay 

[John B]

Wow, what a great day that must have been Jay and Linda! Thanks for the great report, you sure picked out some wonderful places to visit.

Cheers! - John

[Trappist]

Hi Jay,
What an intense beer day in Amsterdam!  Amazing!
It must have been such a nice surprise to find that card.
Attending the 4 great beer places is a really fun thing to do when given that great T-shirts gifts both at you and Linda 
That was only one day, but how packed you an Linda scheduled things. A wonderful itineray job 
Jay, I saw on FB that your brought back home that rich haul.
Erwin Plancke found your "braadworst" very funny. It actually IS funny, but am I correct that braadworst from that kind is not available in the UK? I'm sure you want to make that Dutch dish "Boerenkool met worst" 
Anyway, what a great report again Jay !!!! I'll publsih on the main page asap!!
Cheers and thanks for sharing,
Filip

[Jay]

Erwin Plancke found your "braadworst" very funny. It actually IS funny, but am I correct that braadworst from that kind is not available in the UK? I'm sure you want to make that Dutch dish "Boerenkool met worst" 

Hi Filip,

Yes I saw Erwin's reply to my picture regarding the Braadworst that we picked up.

This is a style that you can pick up here in the UK but whilst in Amsterdam you may as well buy the real deal, same goes for the Rookworst. You can buy a similar looking smoked sausage but again whilst in town it makes sense to buy the proper item.



You're right in the fact that I've bought them to make Stamppot 

Food buying is as important to us as beer shopping and to pick up local ingredients to cook with is essential - our next trip is to Lisbon so I'll be stocking up with Portuguese foodie items, same goes with Budapest, I'll be stocking up with Hungarian paprika, chillies, pastes and spices.

Cheers
Jay 

[Trappist]

Food buying is as important to us as beer shopping and to pick up local ingredients to cook with is essential

Hi Jay,
We frequently visit the Netherlands too. That's only a 30 minutes drive to touristic Sluis.
We always hit supermarket Jumbo to buy the local Dutch delicacies.
Rookworst is one of them. Our Belgian braadworst is exactly the same as the Dutch one. So, no need to buy that at the other side of the border.
Although there is a Dutch Albert Heijn (Brugge) and Jumbo (Zedelgem) supermarket nearby, going to Sluis has that extra Dutch feeling and there's much more Dutch delicacies to find in Sluis, especially the Indosesian dishes and ingredients, incl more Dutch specialty beers too.
Cheers,
Filip