Because of the Easter celebrations we had a day off and we decided to visit the Heineken Experience in Amsterdam! 😊 The Heineken Experience is an interactive museum, created in the former Heineken brewery. They don’t actually brew Heineken beer there anymore, but some parts of the former brewery are still there.
We bought our tickets online. When buying tickets online you have to select a timeslot. We selected 4:45 pm. When we arrived (ten minutes early), there was an enormous waiting line from two sides of the entrance! We thought we would never make it to the entrance within ten minutes, but we were lucky. Every person who bought tickets in advance had priority to people who hadn’t. Even when you arrive just in time, you can skip the whole waiting line and enter the Heineken Experience. So this brings me to my first advise: make sure to buy your tickets in advance!
Waiting line in front of the Heineken Experience in Amsterdam © My Little Travel Stories
Advise number #2: Make sure to receive the wristband you see in the picture down below. It’s your personal Heineken Experience wristband with tokens for two free beers! 😏 They hand them out just after you entered the building.
Your personal wristband with tokens for free beers!
A journey through history
The first part of the Heineken Experience is all about history. You can observe the development of the Heineken logo and the development of the Heineken bottle. It’s all very interesting, but the rooms in this part of the experience were very small and it was way too crowded. Sometimes we couldn’t see anything at all.
Heineken Beer Mats through history
The former brewery
Just when I became a little bit disappointed about the huge crowd in the small rooms with Heineken history we entered the former brewery. This changed my mood completely! 😊 It is a beautiful place with enormous copper boilers, big windows with stained glass, walls of shiny bricks and decorations influenced by the Art Nouveau movement. This is the part where you learn about the process of beer creation.
Former Brewery of Heineken © My Little Travel Stories
Just before leaving the brewery there is a little ‘wort’ tasting. Wort is a liquid containing the sugars that will be fermented by the brewing yeast to produce alcohol. It forms the basis for beer, but also for other alcoholic drinks like whisky or gin. It actually tasted a somewhat like cornflakes.😜
Tasting of wort at the Heineken Experience. Photo credits: Maria Eklind
Be the beer
The next part of the Heineken Experience was whole different from the first part.
It involves a simulator where a film shows how a beer is made and how it is bottled. The idea of this 4D simulator is that you experience to ‘be the beer’. The platform you’re standing up even moves which makes you feel like a beer bottle moving on an assembly line.
So, until now, we’ve seen Heineken history, we have seen the original brewery and we have experienced what it is like to actually be a beer. Now it was time to drink a beer, right? And that’s what happened. Everyone got a free beer from Heineken and they learned us how to toast in Dutch. You know what the Dutch translation is for cheers??
It is PROOST! 😊🍻Did you guess that right? 🙂
Heineken Experience Amsterdam. Photo taken by: nucksfan604
Interactive part of the Heineken Experience
After a refreshing beer we entered the interactive part of the Heineken Experience where it is all about having fun with various games. You can challenge your friends in a virtual beer pouring game where you can test who can pour the best Heineken beer. There are also football games, rugby games, FIFA games on the playstation and you experience what the Holland Heineken House is like. (The Holland Heineken House is a temporary Olympic meeting place for supporters and athletes during the Games).
Virtual beer pouring, Heineken Experience Amsterdam © My Little Travel Stories
Proost!
The end of the Heineken Experience is all about beer tasting. Did you manage to not lose your personal Heineken Experience wristband with two tokens? (My boyfriend actually lost one of his tokens). That’s great, because you can redeem them for two free beers (or soda when you haven’t reached the legal drinking age of 18). Enjoy your beer and the rest of your trip to Amsterdam! 😊
Proost! © My Little Travel Stories
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