The Bar Scene

Tasting Houses

There are only three differences between a brown cafe and a proeflokaal, or tasting house: what you drink, how you drink it, and who owns the place. A proeflokaal's decor will still be basically brown and typically Old Dutch -- and its age may be even more impressive than that of its beer-swilling neighbors -- but in a tasting house, you traditionally order jenever (Dutch gin, taken "neat," without ice) or another product of the distillery that owns the place. Then, to drink your libation, custom decrees that you lean over the bar with your hands behind your back to take the first sip from your full-to-the-brim borreltje (small drinking glass).

Message in the Bottle

You can smooth the process of conversing with locals in a bar if you can bandy about some Dutch drinking terminology. The most common word for a glass of jenever (Dutch gin) is a borrel (bo-rel) or the diminutive borreltje (bo-rel-che), though you'll also hear it called a vaderlandje (fader-lant-che), meaning "little fatherland," and other terms such as hassebassie (hass-uh-bassie), keiltje (kyle-che), piketanussie (pik-et-an-oossee), recht op neer (rekht op near), and slokkie (slok-ee). Avant-garde imbibers may ask for an "uppercut" to prove their international credentials. A glass of jenever filled to the brim, as tradition mandates that it must be, is called a kamelenrug (cam-ay-len-rookh), meaning "camel's back," or an over het IJ-kijkertje (over het eye kyk-erche), meaning "view over the IJ" (an Amsterdam water channel). Jenever is often ordered with a beer chaser. The barkeep will place the kopstoot (cop-stoat), meaning "knock on the head," of a stelletje (stel-etche), meaning "couple," on the bar. Beer or pils (pilss) in a small glass is called a colaatje pils (co-la-che pilss); a kabouter pils (ka-bou-ter pilss), meaning "dwarf beer"; or a lampie licht (lam-pee likht), meaning "little lamp." Ale in a large glass is known as a bakkie (bak-ee) or a vaas, which means jar or vase. If it's served in a half-liter (1-pint) glass, it's known locally as an amsterdammertje (little Amsterdammer).

So if you breeze into a brown cafe, park yourself at the bar, and call the bartender over for a "Recht op neer borrel," then ask him to "make sure it's a proper over het IJ-kijkertje, put a kopstoot with it, a colaatje if you please, and set up a bakkie for later," you should get on swimmingly (of course, they might also send for the men in white coats).

Great Dutch Drinks

The Dutch are famous for their gin, or jenever, and their beer. The former is a fiery, colorless liquid served ice-cold and drunk "neat" -- it's not a mixer. You can get flavored jenever -- from berry to lemon -- and just as with Dutch cheese, you can get oude or jonge (old or young) jenever -- every bar has a wide selection on its shelves. But while cheese gets harder and sharper with age, jenever grows smooth and soft; jonge is less sweet and creamy than oude. All are known for their delayed-action effectiveness, so beware if you don't feel it right away.

As for beer, you can get regular Heineken, Grolsch, or Amstel -- called pils in Amsterdam, or you can try something different as you make the rounds. I happen to like the witte (white) beer, which is sweeter than pils: Hoegaarden is a good example. On the opposite end of the spectrum are the Belgian dark beers, like De Koninck or Duvel. Belgian beers are quite popular in Holland and are, in general, better made and more artisanal than the native brews, though Triple Sec is a very good Dutch liqueur.

Brown Cafes

You haven't really tasted Dutch beer until you've tasted it in Holland, served Dutch-style in a real bruine kroeg (brown cafe). These traditional Dutch bars are unpretentious, unpolished institutions filled with camaraderie, like a British pub or an American neighborhood bar. In a brown cafe, pouring another beer is much more important than dusting off the back bottles on the bar; the ritual is to draw a beer to get as much foam as possible, then using a wet knife to shave off the head between a series of final fill-ups.

Even if you're not a beer lover, venturing into a brown cafe in Amsterdam will give you a peek into the city's everyday life. In old neighborhoods, brown cafes are on almost every corner -- you can't miss them. Most have lacy curtains on the bottom half of the window, and perhaps a cat sleeping on the ledge. In winter (and sometimes into spring), their front doors are hung with a thick drape to keep out drafts. Once inside, you'll find the smoky, mustard brownness that's unique to an Amsterdam brown cafe, the result of years -- no, centuries -- of thick smoke and warm conversation.

There may be booths or little tables sprinkled around, but the only spots of color and light will be the shining metal of the beer tap and, perhaps, a touch of red still showing in the Persian rugs thrown across the tables (a practice that's typically Dutch, if you recall the old paintings). You feel the eons of conviviality the minute you walk into a really old, really brown brown cafe. Some have been on their corners since Rembrandt's time, haunted by the ghosts of drinkers past. The best of them are on the Prinsengracht, below Westermarkt, at the Dam, at Leidseplein, on Spui, or with a bit of searching, on tiny streets between canals.