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Netherlands
Right opposite the excellent Café Gollem (a lovely, cosy little bar where you can sample up to 200 Belgian beers) is one of the best beer shops in Holland. Selling about 500 beers from all over the world and specialising in beers from small independent brewers, it's an absolute treasure trove for the beer lover. You can buy Westvleteren there (which is reputedly the best beer in the world and extremely hard to come by), as well as some truly stunning Scandinavian and American beers. Try the Norwegian Porters and Imperial Stouts. Highly recommended.
And once you've bought some for later, why not pop into Café Gollem to try a couple on tap and maybe a Kaasplank (literally a plank with cheese & bread on it). Very satisfying. There's also a second branch of Café Gollem right by the Albert Cuyp Market in the Pijp district.
crackedkettle.nl/store/
www.cafegollem.nl/default_EN.asp
www.cafegollem.nl/bierkeuken/default_EN.asp
Both The Cracked Kettle and Café Gollem are on Raamsteeg, a small alley between Spuistraat and the Singel canal. The other Gollem is on Daniel Stalpertstraat, round the corner from the Albert Cuyp Market and the Heineken brewery
Great campsite on the edge of the city, 15 mins to Dam Square on a tram. Cheap tent rates or hire a little cabin, central heating and bedding included in the cost of these. Good breakfast can be bought from the bar in the morning, and food all day at not extortionate prices. Good clean showers, if a little cramped when you are taking one. Bike hire on site as well, and saves you having to find parking in the city centre at very expensive rates, you just leave your car at the campsite!
If dreadlocks, piercing and tribal tattoos are your style, there’s Soundgarden. It boasts a surprisingly civilized terrace overlooking the daily ebb and flow of boats and barges, but the inside is almost painstakingly run-down and graffitied, with a buckled pool table and a dartboard pocked with scars. Not as intimidating as it sounds, but hardly appropriate for the blue-rinse brigade. Grungy DJs and live music three times a week.
Marnixstraat 164-166, out west near Rozentheater
+31 (0)20 620 28 53
home.planet.nl/~nijbo143/soundgarden/english.htm
The archetype of a brown cafe, with a good selection of beers and cosily 'gezellig', despite its proximity to Leidseplein, it's a retreat from the lager louts.
Korte Leidsedwarsstraat 86
0031 206248901
To sample the real atmosphere of the city and its 'brown cafes', wander a little off the main canals and try Het Stuive Jet.
Harry's Bar is a cosy cocktail bar spread across three floors of a creaky old Dutch house. The barman assured us is in no way affiliated with the famous bar in Venice of the same name (their near-identical logos are "completely coincidental"). Nice atmosphere, huge list of drinks and great views of the street.
Spuistraat, Centrum
For a great bar/restaurant, try the old first-class waiting room on platform 2b of Amsterdam Central station. Really ornate decoration, good food and definitely worth a visit.
Gollem is an excellent little place to spend the night, trying every single one of their various beers. Just before where the Singel meets Spui, you'll find this most cute little place in a side street.
The Supper Club is the coolest place on earth! It has a hip restaurant and lounge with a design bar beneath that’s the sexiest haunt in town right now. The dining area walls are white and you sit on beds - a scenario suggestive of sexual intent if ever there was one.
The food is rich and Mediterranean, and drinks are pricey, but the artsy, cool crowd are surprisingly unpretentious. The cosy bar beneath is done in similarly lush style with mirrors, pillars and couches completing the sultry effect.
Live DJs keep playing until late and the measures in your cosmopolitan are maximalist not minimalist. An absolute must for all visitors to Amsterdam.
Bar Gollum is a small bar in the centre of Amsterdam with a huge range of beers, helpful staff and a friendly atmosphere.
Something like the Dutch answer to Wetherspoons, this Eetcafe on the Spui enjoys a fair variety of Belgian beers and bar snacks. In the summer, sit out on the covered terrace and observe the daily battle between the trams and the cyclists - like watching a pack of sharks taking on a school of darting fish.
Spui 30
(0031) 20 6225110
www.beiaardgroep.nl/
People tend to covet two images of Amsterdam: one is of the sleepy city of culture and canals; the other is of one of Europe's hottest party venues. Rarely do you find a place that encompasses both together, but De Zotte is it.
Tucked away in a side street, there are hundreds of Belgian beers on offer to satisfy the connoisseur, yet the hip young crowd and funky sounds keep away the crusties and coach tours.
If you have to drink mass-produced Heineken, don't worry, there's hundreds of other cafes to choose from.
29 Raamstraat
+31(0)20 6268694
Vyne is a fantastic Wine Bar recently opened on the Prinsengracht. We were there in their first week and they had great "wine flights" and food to match.
Very cool (but not "too cool") and the staff were friendly.
Prinsendgracht 411
1016 hm Amsterdam
020 344 64 08
info@vyne.nl
Irish Pub on Rokin popular with Expats and boorish tourists on lager and Guinness fuelled tours through the town and the Red Light District. Food is average and overpriced. The room with a fire is quite nice in the winter. There are much better places in Amsterdam, if you want to go to an Irish bar go to Tig Barra on Overtoom.
I came to Amsterdam, a cynic of all things jazz and bohemian. I left 'Cafe Eijlders' with great memories of friendly locals, attentive barstaff, nice beer, good music and a promise to return
Café Eijlders
Korte Leidsedwarsstraat 47
1017 PW Amsterdam
telefoon: 020 - 624 2704.
www.eijlders.nl
Intimate in the way only tapas bars can be intimate, prices here are very reasonable and the atmosphere is suitably Mediterranean. The scratched-on-with-a-knife graffiti decor is not, however, to everyone's taste.
0031 20 422 62 50
124 Utrechtsestraat
American hotel is an extremely good place to stay, though a bit pricy. Fantastic location close to museums & night life. Very friendly staff, a real treat, and the hotel's cafe is a fantastic place to have a meal or just a cup of coffee, very beautiful with a distinctly old-times flavour. Excellent value for money. Strongly recommend both places.
Leidsekade 97, Amsterdam (close to Ledsplein);
tel: (0)20 556 3000;
email: info@AmsterdamAmerican.com;
www.amsterdamamerican.com
A jenever (gin) tasting house (aka bar).
As well as the usual Bols jenevers, this delightful small bar has a large range of flavoured gins (including liquorice and a salty one), aged 5 & 10 year old gins and bitters (their own brand Olofspoortje Bitter is on my desk at the moment - a very nice bitter orange 30%).
The bar is on the corner of the main Red Light area, not far from Centraal Station. I went on a busy evening & approached from the wrong direction, past hoards of drunken English tourists trying to find somewhere to get ... well, what do people go here for?
But this historic bar was nice & quiet - about 10 Dutch people (including two who were tourists), and a small party of Japanese who were shown into a back room for a 'tutored tasting'. I stayed & tried to understand as much Dutch as I could, whilst selecting the more unusual jenevers.
Beer, cheese and other snacks are also available.
Nieuwe Brugsteeg 13, 1012 AG Amsterdam; tel 020 624 3918
Though not so central as Nieuwmarkt, Leidseplein and the other well-known hangouts, if you want to avoid the crowds head here for a quiet night out with a local flavour. There's five or six authentic little brown cafes to choose from, and a couple of restaurants too. The scenery's not bad and there's few if any lary stag-nighters.
Just off Prins Hendrikkade: from Centraal station, cross the road and walk east for fifteen minutes, it's opposite the old sailing ship at the Scheepvartsmuseum. Try also bus 22 or trams 9 and 14.
Berets and wristbands abound in the the place my mate Matt calls "Ebelingo" because there's so much chalk that the whole place is chattering. He's great. Anyway, come to the Ebeling for great service and even better house DJ's. A must.
Overtoom 50/52
1054 HK
Tel: 020 689 45 58
www.cafeebeling.com
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