Friday, February 12, 2010

Deventer, Holland

Work has been extremely busy lately and sending me to places like Holland, Burton-on-trent, Manchester and Ireland. While it is hard to be away from home, it allows me to take the narrow window of opportunity to explore if I get a chance to stay somewhere interesting. I have to really maximize my time being that I have recently finished work at 9:30 or so, then have to fit a meal in before bed, so naturally not much time for exploring.

Work brought me to Deventer last week and as one of my colleagues mothers so kindly made dinner for the audit team, I was able to check out the old town of Deventer when I finished working last Thursday.  I asked the guy at the desk where the best place to get a unique beer was and without hesitation he pointed me to De Heks, situated on the main old square in the old town. The building dates back several hundred years and the bartenders were very friendly to chat, as I was solo on this icy and wet evening. 
Soon after the owner, Eddie, came to the bar and we started talking beer and he was really excited to have me taste (i.e. sample, not full beers!) several of the 25 odd taps they have of mostly hard-to-get belgians, all which were great!
After a couple beers, Eddie took me to his prized beer cellar, full of hundreds of bottles of belgians, dutch and a couple US beers even. It was great of him to show me the coveted beer cellar and I definitely felt like a kid in a candy store.  One of the bartenders boyfriends is involved in brewing beer and she kindly let me try one of this beers that they occasionally sell at the bar. Her boyfriend came to the bar soon after so we talked about our brewing experiences. Everyone at the bar were really friendly, which left me with a great impression of Deventer. 
It ended up being a great night and I am glad to have experienced the De Heks hospitality...this is a must see in a Dutch town set well off the beaten track. 

No comments:

Post a Comment