I thought I should post a review of the Heineken Experience in Amsterdam because it was one of the most fun experiences I’d had up until that point in my life (this was in 2007).
Back when I was a youngin’ of twenty-one years old, studying abroad in London, I took a trip to Amsterdam because that’s what you do as a twenty-one year old on another continent for the first time.
Yes, I smoked a lot. No, I didn’t do mushrooms. Yes, I walked around the Red Light District (it’s super safe actually, and very pretty). And yes, I went to the Heineken Experience, because it was the next item on my list after Anne Frank’s Huis and the Van Gough Museum.
The Heineken Experience is like Adult Disneyland.
After paying you were given four tokens for pints as you walked through the brewery. As far as I can remember, there wasn’t an actual tour (unlike at the Guinness Storehouse) but we walked through a specific path around the brewery, making pitstops four times for pints along the way.
Everything was green and very reminiscent of the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz (except with lots of beer and drunk adults). When we reached our final destination, we traded in our last tokens for a few pints. While we were enjoying them, a couple of people walked over and gave us their four tokens. I guess they were all beer-ed out. We rejoiced and proceeded to get sloshed at 4 o’clock in the afternoon.
The Heineken Experience in Amsterdam is a less mature experience than the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, but it’s no less fun. I don’t drink Heineken anymore, but this tour gets an A+.
Emily and I at the end of our tour – four beers in, each, and happy.
[…] visit The Heineken Experience. I wrote about it here, but it’s truly a lot of fun. And if you hate Heineken in the US, I believe the Heineken in […]