If you manage to escape out of the clutches of The Red Light District in Amsterdam, be sure you head straight on over to the Heineken Experience. That is of course if you are of legal drinking age, and like beer!
It will cost you €15, which includes 1 taste test drink, 2 drink tickets, and one keepsake cheesy plastic wristband.
The building was the first Heineken brewery built back in 1867 but is now just the museum. No more beer is made here. So if your looking to see actual Heineken beer being brewed you will be disappointed. When we first heard about this we almost decided to not check it out but after visiting the museum we are very happy we did. It was a great time!
You have your normal history timeline walkthrough about Heineken itself, head into the mock brewery and learn about the process and ingredients, even sample some “wort”. Then stroll past the beer delivery horses in their original stables, become a bottle in a motion simulator theatre complete with other sensory effects, hit the extremely funky tasting bar and learn to drink like a pro! Then enter into some futuristic rooms with various trendy methods of multi-media paired with music and more. Complete it all by sending some free email postcards to friends back home… and star in your own music video! Also for an extra charge you can make your own personalized Heineken bottle label.
The Star Shaped Tasting Bar
After all that beer talk your mouth is just salivating for another beer. Finally you hit the World Bar and experience some Extra Cold Heineken. Hand over your drink tickets and enjoy! Since the tour takes about 90 mins we found out most visitors don’t have time to drink 2 full drinks. So if you hang out long enough and smile nice you just might get offered another one or two drink tickets.
Interactive Table in the World Bar
While your enjoying your extra cold beer be sure to check out their wicked tables with motion activated info screens (Microsoft Surface perhaps?), then once your all done and feeling a good buzz you better get yourself back to the Red Light District for an evening of…. well it’s up to you!
Cheers!!
We travelled there with our three daughters. We found all informations on amsterdam.info. Amsterdam it is a very beautiful town and the museums are great. But with the exchange rate as it is, we found it very expensive. Some museums were closed for refurbishment, but the views of the canals and hi-lights such as the Anne Frank House and the Artis Zoo (an old-fashioned place with a great array of animals kept in somewhat cramped conditions) are very memorable. The food is awful unless you want to spend a great deal of money and there is a cynical attitude to tourists that is very out of date (e.g. tapas marinaded pork was one slice of fried bacon on 1/2 a bread roll). We stayed in the serviceable but expensive Singel Hotel which was okay but its close proximity to a red light area made going out with the children awkward and there really was nothing charming or liberated about hurrying past the ladies in the windows. The same is true of the legal dope selling ‘coffee houses’. The whole bicycle thing is interesting. It is almost, but not quite, the eco-city of the future. Some cyclists are quite anarchic and we spent a fair bit of time dodging pavement mounted bad-tempered riders. Overall verdict was we were glad we’d been but wouldn’t go again as it feels over priced, out of date and sleazy – not the cutting edge hip family friendly town it’s sold as.
To be fair I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Amsterdam as a hip family friendly town, at least in Canada. It’s certainly more known as a party city with an edge, but I can see how it wouldn’t be that great with kids. Especially near the red light district. Though it is all pretty well contained and the city is clean, if not a bit dangerous with the bicycles going 40km everywhere.
Thanks for the thoughts!