Amsterdam Premium Lager
Company info:
Original Brauerei
Enschede, HOLLAND (further research suggests the Royal Grolsch Brewery as the creator of this drop)
Bottle size sampled: 330 mL
Alcohol: 4.8%
Standard drinks: 1.2
Cap type: Non-twist
Cost: Donated beer
Label info: ‘Brewed in Holland. Brewed in the finest tradition’
What the label really means: It’s good to know that a beer called ‘Amsterdam’ is brewed in Holland.
The Hell-Cat review starts here
Label: I am a little disappointed that we don’t get any Dutch stereotypical images on this label. Where are the windmills? Where are the clogs? Where are the ladies of the night stalking the back alleys of the infamous Red Light district? Where are the smoke-filled coffee shops? Instead we have to settle for a large sailing ship. And sure, it’s an impressive looking ship but it’s hardly something that makes this label grand. Also, I don’t know what it is, but blue rarely works on a beer label, especially with a green bottle.
I give it a label rating of 4.5 out of 10.
AROMA: A soft, wheaty aroma.
Taste: GLASS – Amsterdam Premium Lager is bitter, and dry, and….well, not much else. It’s drinkable, sure, and being a cheap beer (at least in Australia) it’s definitely more drinkable than some of the Aussie equivalents but it’s nothing memorable and I can see myself getting sick of this very quickly.
I give it a beer from glass rating of 5 out of 10.
Taste: BOTTLE – This is very plain and very ordinary. It actually loses a little in taste when consumed from the bottle. Nothing great at all.
I give it a taste from bottle rating of 4.5 out of 10.
A word from the wife: “Tart with a lingering sweet flavour”
She gave it a taste rating of 7 out of 10.
Accompanying food: Suggesting pizza to accompany beer is like suggesting tomato sauce with a meat pie. But dammitt I haven’t suggested pizza for a while and the Amsterdam may just spring out of its shell when accompanying a nice peperoni, or meat lovers supreme.
Best season to appreciate: Not exactly a thirst quencher given the dry nature of this lager, so perhaps it is better suited for the Winter months.
All-nighter beer? No not for me. It isn’t that easy to drink and I’d be sick of it very quickly.
NEXT WEEK: I’m somewhere in the great U.S of A, so stay tuned for something special. You’ll have to excuse any formatting issues I encounter!
Hell-Cat's beer blog 
Not content to merely pluck an American beer from the shelf at his local Murphett’s, everyone’s favourite Hell-Cat actually goes to the place and observes American beers in their natural habitat. Wow! That’s what I like about this blog, Hell-Cat goes that extra yard, or in this case that extra 15,000 kilometres. I repeat, wow!
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Thanks Sniv – good to see my work goes noticed.
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It looks like everyone’s favourite Hell-Cat has gone AWOL again.
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I’m back! I know I’ve missed a week (sorry guys!) but I have a real cracker for next week. Stay tuned.
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I knew a girl from Amsterdam. I reckon this beer would be right up her alley. Nine out of ten.
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Would she go the bottle or the can Sniv?
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Probably the can, Bargé, it rhymes with Amsterdam.
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Interesting fact:
Blue is the worst colour to use on food packaging because there is no naturally occurring blue foodstuffs. Even blueberries are purple. Apparently blue food packaging is a kiss of death.
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Raspberry flavoured chewy lollies are often blue. Which presumably means they are made from blue raspberries. So ha! There’s a ‘naturally occurring blue foodstuff” right there. Ha!
On the subject of food colouring and also on the subject of the USA, I was bamboozled when I found myself in New York on St Patrick’s Day a few years back. They put GREEN food colouring in all the lager!?
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I tested your assertion just then, Mr McLean, by asking someone “what colour would you expect raspberry flavoured chewy lollies to be?”
To which they replied “Blue, naturally!”
So I guess you are right.
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Green beer on St Pat’s day is a world-wide thing, isn’t it? I’ve had it in Adelaide.
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In response to BargeDave’s comment, I’d never heard of green food colouring in beer until I went to the US. They certainly don’t do it in the UK and, I suspect, they don’t do it in Ireland either.
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I’ve never travelled north of Brisbane, south of Melbourne or west of the Eyre Peninsula so I wouldn’t know about far-off exotic places. I just figured if they have it in Adelaide, it must be everywhere given Adelaide’s tendancy to be very enthusiastic about trends which hit the rest of the world thirty years ago.
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As cheap beers go, this is my favourite. I go for the 500ml cans rather than the bottles, just from a value-for-money point of view. I’ve probably had the odd hangover from it but never anything like one gets from cheap Australian beers. Like with Grolsh, I find that the hop flavours hint towards the flavour of another plant related to hops plants for which the city of Amsterdam is quite famous…..if you know what I mean.
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I’ve reached for this dry Dutch brew once or twice and woke up the next day feeling as if I’d been dragged naked through the streets of Amsterdam by my testicles.
Not the tastiest beer around and a bit of a headache inducer if you have more than a few.
Your review summed it up well buddy.
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But how can you be certain that you weren’t dragged naked through the streets of Amsterdam by my testicles? Exactly how many of these Dutch destroyers did you consume?
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Now you’re just being silly.
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Luke, you’re absolutely right. I’m just being foolish. My testicles aren’t strong enough to drag anyone else around Amsterdam.
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