The Netherlands
Amsterdam
Amstel
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On June 11, 1870, two-year-old Ernest de Pester, the son of Amstel founder Baron C.A. de Pester, laid the first stone for the Amstel brewery in Amsterdam.
The new brewery was the brainchild of two Amsterdam businessmen, De Pester and J.H. van Marwijk Kooy, responding to the skyrocketing popularity of Bavarian beers in Holland.
And although there were already 559 breweries in Holland at that time, only two of them brewed Bavarian style 'lager' beer.
The idea of brewing lager beer in Holland was a bold one: to produce a good lager beer you need ice (the fermentation process requires a temperature of 8 degrees Celsius).
In southern Germany this was easy enough (using snow from the Alps or ice from Bavarian caves) but in Holland it was another story.
Amsterdam's canals offered the perfect solution.
Ice chipped from the frozen canals during the winter was stored in special double-walled cellars.
By 1872 the Amstel Brewery was producing 10,000 hl of lager annually.
The name 'Amstel' comes from the river that flows through the city of Amsterdam.
The brewery was situated close to the Amstel River, whose water was used to cool the beer.
The colors red and white are part of the Amstel heritage.
The official story is that red was chosen because it was the Amsterdam's city color.
But the unofficial version is that De Pesters and van Marwijk Kooy were avid billiards players.
There is an old painting in which two gentlemen are enjoying an Amstel beer while plaing billiards: clearly visible are a red and a white ball.
In its first years the brewery sold 90% of its beer in Amsterdam, and by the 1886 the Amstel brewery was the city's largest brewer of lager beer.
In 1883 Amstel started exporting beer to the U.K. and to the Dutch colonies in the Far East.
By 1915 the production of Amstel beer had increased by a factor of 20, and by 1926 Amstel accounted for one-third of the total Dutch beer exports!
Now Amstel is sold all over the world, from South Africa to Hungary and from the USA to China.
Since 1969 the Amstel Brewery has been a subsidiary of the Heineken company.
The two brands are perfectly complementary: Heineken, the world's favorite premium beer and Amstel, the best of the standard beers.
Amstel is also known as one of the sponsors of the UEFA Champions League.
This prestigious football event reflects what the Amstel brand stands for: Fun, Friendship and Freedom.
(Info from: Amstel, 2000)
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