Taste is debatable, but on one thing we fully agree. Live with your head held high is the motto. Because honestly, isn’t it the most fun to stick it right into the middle of life? So every day of the year friends and strangers pull up a chair in our tasting rooms. From around the corner and from far and wide. For plenty of fun and a good glass of beer.
Live with your head held high
Some of these beers have even become widely known, like the undisputed crowd favorite IJwit, the Zatte Tripel that started it all, and our IPA, whose IPA lady remains etched in collective memory. Or everyone knows it’s time to welcome spring as soon as the yellow labels of PaasIJ appear on the shelves.
We’re also present across the city and the country, in supermarkets and your favorite cafés. And we regularly throw a good party, where alongside a glass of beer we share our love for creativity and music. Every year in Utrecht at Easter we host Eggshibition, an exhibition of ostrich eggs decorated by artists. Closer to home, there’s Amsterdam's party under the Windmill, a musical cacophony in October. Come by, pull up a chair, sing along, and celebrate life.
From bathhouse to brewery
Our future was hidden in 1985, on the fringe of Amsterdam’s city center. That’s where Kaspar lived, a strapping fellow and above all a musician who, during his performances abroad, discovered an incredible variety of craft beers. Since there was little of that available in his own city at the time, he decided to start brewing beer himself, in his wash tub. Following his own recipe inspired by Belgian traditions, he made delicious beer, but his neighbors were a bit less enthusiastic. So he decided to brew his beer somewhere else. He was able to buy an old bathhouse from the municipality for just one coin. You see, Amsterdam has two rivers. And since the Amstel was already taken, Kaspar named his brewery ’t IJ. And then came his first beer: Zatte Tripel. And today, it’s still available all across the country.
