Though we’re not beer drinkers, Clyde and I go on the Heineken Brewery Tour.
Why? Because every tour guide, including “Rick Steves’ Amsterdam, Bruges, and Brussels 2005” (Rick Steves, Gene Openshaw), raves about it. So we find ourselves a few blocks from the Rijksmuseum, buying ten-Euro tickets to the local equivalent of the World of Coke.
First: this is not a brewery tour. There’s not a real brewery in the building, unless it’s being kept hidden behind the scenes. The big vats we saw were all display models, modified to incorporate video screens or cut-away displays. That photo opportunity that allows you to make a short video while standing on the bottling company floor? It’s a fake: the automated bottling machinery is Chroma-Keyed (or “blue screened”) into the picture, while you stand on an empty blue stage.
Second: When you’re not looking at mock-ups of beer vats, the tour consists of staring at video monitors displaying one of two things:
a) various Heineken talking heads answering questions like, “Why is Heineken such great beer?”, or
b) Heineken television ads.
These monitors are all in clever settings: a bizarre fermentation tank, a row of reclining chairs, a video wall. Still, they’re monitors. Displaying advertising.
Lame. Lame, lame, lame.
Finally: the big payoff of the tour is the visit to one of two fake bars, where you can turn in your fake green coins to get an actual glass of Heineken.
We tried it twice. As I mentioned before, we aren’t beer drinkers. And, to be honest, even though we’re not beer drinkers, Heineken still tasted pretty good.
That said: unless you’re the sort of person who loves standing in long lines to watch television ads on LCD monitors, you’d do better to spend your ten Euros on, well, a few bottles of Heineken.
Definitely. Not. Recommended.
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