Friday 27 May 2016

Brewery Discovery: Kompaan

Brewery: Kompaan
City: The Hague
Country: The Netherlands

Last week i headed over for a great brew filled couple of days to the Hague, the Netherlands. The first thing which contributed to these "great brew filled days" was a visit to the Kompaan Bier/Beer Brewery.

Kompaan Bier Brewery and Bar

The visit was wholly spontaneous, I google mapped my friends place (where i was staying over this particular weekend) to see if there were any interesting breweries or bars around, and saw that this brewery was quite close by. Having tried a number of their beers, and always being up for a Brewery visit, this seemed like a great way to spend the late afternoon!

The Kompaan brewery is located in quite an industrial area, and without knowing that its there you would probably never run into it (except if you are working in the industrial area off course). The brewery is located on an industrial wharf, and is surrounded by operational factories. In my opinion, a very cool place for a craft beer bar and brewery!

Kompaan Bar & Friend
As you can see in the picture above (and those to come) the brewery and bar incorporate their industrial surroundings into their interior design.

Plenty of Choice!
Apart from the 20 beers on tap, which is a mix between their own brews and those of other breweries, the bar also has a few bottled beers on offer.

Enjoying a Kompaan India Pale Lager!
Moreover, the bar also serves a number of snacks and food options, including home made beer mustard and syrup (which happened to be the best syrup i have ever tasted!). A small note here though, you can only pay by card as cash is not accepted at Kompaan.


Enjoying a cheese platter with beer mustard and syrup!
The brewery and bar are run by two friends, Jasper and Jeroen. The brewery was formally located in a small industrial warehouse, but due to sharp increases in demand (and the wish to add a bar to the brewery) the brewery moved to its current location, a larger warehouse close to the original brewery.

Wise Words
However, due to unforeseen issues with starting up at the new location, the majority of their beer is currently being brewed in Germany (something which was already being done to a certain extent when demand was outstripping the ability to supply at the old location).

Brewery Tour
At the current location there is some small batch brewing going on, and there are a number of beers being barrel aged. Fortunately, the issues which are plaguing the brewery are close to being resolved and it is expected that Kompaan will start brewing all their beer at the current location around September.

Space for a brewery
Barrel Ageing Goodness
If you are in the area, the Kompaan Brewery and Bar are a great place to visit! Friendly staff, good food and some nice brews!

Cheers!