Welcome to the Grown-up Travel Guide 2015 Beer Diary!
A little background info: in December a group of us decided to set up the 2014 Beer Advent Calendar, whereby we would try a new beer each day up until Christmas. We shared our tipples on Facebook and Instagram and a great time was had by all – plus we all got to learn about some fine brews from around the world.
Faced with a sense of emptiness when the challenge was over I decided that 24 days a year was just not enough. Why not a year of beer? And so here we are. I reckon a beer a day can keep the doctor away – but even if not it’ll be fun, right?
Given that a large proportion of the year 2015 will be spent in foreign climes there will be the added element of finding a new brew wherever we travel and there are a huge number of excellent beers available here in Norway too – most of which I doubt any of our readers will have heard of.
Your participation is not only encouraged but required – just use the hashtag #grownupbeerdiary if possible. Add your entries here and/or use our social media channels – whatever works best for you.
To keep it simple follow the same format as we do here: describe your day in a maximum of five sentences, add some info about the beer and a photo or two.
Obscure ales and imports IPAs are always interesting but there’s to be no snobbery here – anything goes, even alcohol-free as we all need a good alternative now and again. We’ll work out the practicalities as we go – but since the first day of the year is nearly over we better get started on this journey around the world – in beer form. Cheers!
Day 183: July 2, 2015
Diary entry:
A long day of travel today, with more than half of it spent up in the air.
After breakfast at the hotel I took the shuttle bus to the airport.
KLM were on time and half empty, so I had plenty of space on the long haul to Amsterdam.
Again I had over five hours to kill at Schiphol so used two lounges and a bar to do so.
Back home just after midnight to collapse into bed.
The Beer:
Name: Natte
Producer: Brouwerij’t IJ of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Alcohol content: 6.5%
Glass size: 330 ml
Purchased from: Snack bar, Amsterdam airport
#grownupbeerdiary
Apart from a (very good) Irish pub I find the lack of decent bars at Schiphol airport a bit of a mystery. Sure, you can buy Heineken everywhere but not much else. Happily I discovered that a snack bar had a couple of local craft beers on its shelves, including this very rich brew. A promising start for my experience of Dutch microbreweries.
