Jaap – Beerndx

A source of beer knowledge, special beers and warm hospitality. That’s how a visit to Huub van Dijk can be summarized. Huub is the brewer of multiple prize winner ‘saison Wittekop’, a phenomenal beer with which he won the Brussels Beer Challenge and the Dutch Beer Challenge. He is also an award-winning zythologist and collector of just about anything that has to do with beer. To combine the useful with the pleasant, we went to visit Huub with the BeerNDX team.

Time for the interview!

“Sorry for the mess men, but we have just returned from 2 days in Antwerp and have not had much time to clean up.” Once we started talking about Antwerp and its bars, the conversation really takes off. “Do you know where you should go? Café Mombasa in Borgerhout; very nice beers that you can’t drink anywhere else. Also very hospitable, highly recommended. ” While we are being served a ‘Wittekop’, he picks up a number of folders. In these folders – described in detail – are the places in the Netherlands and Belgium which true beerlovers must visit. Quite an undertaking, while browsing through the scriptures.

Team BeerNDX listens carefully to the stories of Huub.

While we talk about the visit to Antwerp and the collection of beers, related beer items are discussed as well. Clearly it is not only beer that he collects, we notice that when he shows us the rooms upstairs. “I think I have about 80 beer neon signs and they all still work.” he hasn’t exaggerated one bit, especially by showing us the neon sign of Sint Sixtus (!). There are even 2 rooms and cupboards in the corridor that are filled with enamel signs from breweries that no longer exist or at least have adopted a clearly different house style.

Pretty impressive Huub, I am very curious about the beers in your collection, how many bottles do you think you have?

There was a long pause, after which he answered: “I don’t dare to estimate, I think somewhere between 500 and 600.” A very modest estimate, I can tell you.

The La Trappe oak aged collection is also complete!

When did you start collecting beer?

The real collection must have started somewhere in 2009. At least, most of my beers are from that time. I certainly have older beers in my collection, but I often bought them later. How do I get them? I have been in the beer world for quite some time now, and after a while you will get to know a lot of people in there. As a result, I have nice beers that sometimes even the brewer himself no longer has.

Can you name such a showpiece?

For example, I still have a closed box with 12 ‘Cuvée van de Keizer Blauw’ from 1999. The beer will be over its top by now, but it is really special to have. I don’t believe there are many of them around in this condition.

Another showpiece of Huub: Ter Dolen Limited Edition.

Where do you purchase your beer?

I particularly like the traditional beer culture and that is why I like to visit Belgian stores a lot. You will almost always find special items, especially at smaller stores in unknown places. I can recommend it to anyone who visits Belgian. Oh wait, on second thought, rather not. Otherwise the specials are gone before I can get there, haha.

And when you have found a nice beer, with whom do you prefer to taste it?

That’s easy, with Mieke Desplenter from Ter Dolen and Hildegard van Ostaden from the Leyerth. These ladies have meant a lot to the beer world and they are also very knowledgeable.

Any tips for the starting collector?

Make sure you have a good environment to store the beer. Beer should not have too much light and it should not be too hot. But the most important tip: “Don’t forget to drink!”

You cannot get our reporter stressed out easily. He has spoken to many beer connoisseurs, and performing a speech to groups is no problem. But tonight is different. He stays in the bathroom just a little longer and at dinner he didn’t get a bite down his throat. Tonight a really tough job awaits him. He is the only man present with 40 (!) ladies of the women’s beer guild; For the love of beer!

Once arrived at bar d’r Neffe in Roosendaal we are welcomed by the ladies who organized this theme evening. “Welcome, do you want a beer?” With this greeting, the reporter calmed down. Time for the interview.

Why a women’s beer guild?

There are plenty of men’s beer guilds and of course ladies are very welcome there. “Together with Linda van Hooijdonk and Birgit Danen we had the idea that having a beer guild for women would be even more fun than joining an existing one,” says Maaike. “We have only just started tasting beers and the existing beer guild was much further in terms of knowledge and tasting experience. We wanted to do it at our own pace and get more knowledge of beer ourselves. With our beer guild we want to be a group where it’s a pleasure to be among other beerlovers. However, it does have a serious note, we want to increase our knowledge of and interest in beer. Once we started and picked the name of our guild we had to go out and find us some members.

Linda: “What happened then was really crazy, in no time we had 30 members and it didn’t stop there. Registrations kept coming in. We are on 43 members including the board for now, but there are also 36 ladies on the waiting list. Why stop at 43? That is very practical. We want to go on a bus every year as an outing and that means a limit due to the capacity of a bus. And of course we need to be able to hear each other during the tastings.”

Time to taste

Then we are urged to silence. The serious work can begin and a powerpoint presentation is even started with the theme: Sweet and Sour. Lucie van Oers takes us into the world of geuze and tells the group everything about the first beer, the Faro Boon. While the ladies are seriously tasting, I ask Lucie who decides which theme and which beers are on the program. “At the annual members’ meeting, all ideas are collected and asked who wants to take on what. We are often with 3 people who organize it. In order to prepare we did some tasting in advance, somebody has to do it haha. ”

The Powerpoint presentation is being showed to the ladies.

The difference with a men’s beer guild

In the meantime, the chairwoman is pouring me the Duchesse de Bourgogne, a classic that will look great on this evening. “I don’t like this beer myself, but it fits well with the theme.” While enjoying the beer, I ask Linda what the biggest difference is with a men’s beer guild. “Actually there are 2 things. An important difference is that members sometimes take 9 months off because they are not allowed to drink, if you know what I mean. This will not happen so quickly in a men’s beer guild. We can also be a bit more exuberant with regard to the themes. I am reminded of the theme of white beer. That in itself is not very exciting you would think. There is not much difference between different white beers. But in this case everyone was dressed in white, there was a DJ and Maaike even came in a wedding dress with wedding bouquet and all.

The future

As a final question, I asked the chairwoman what her wish is for the women’s beer guild: “We want a long-term right to exist and, despite the creative outbursts, we want to be a serious beer guild and also radiate this. Going out more by, for example, also organizing events in Roosendaal such as a beerfestival or whatever comes to mind. ”

Author: Jaap

The collector and his beer #3