Windy Dutch Beer

On a warm, cloudy day in May my husband and I were exploring in an absolutely out of the way, non-touristy Dutch village in Friesland in the north of the Netherlands. Our trajectory from the canal where we left our boat was clearly towards the slowly arcing arms of a large windmill in the distance. Walking along on brick paths and cobblestone streets we passed bakeries and cafes with window boxes filled with wild masses of geraniums and sweet William. We had no idea we were about to learn a fascinating lesson about the origins of Dutch beer.

The windmill creaked as the large blades swung around near a small door that had a handwritten sign propped against the doorjamb, “Come up,” was all it said in English.

The MillerI grabbed the handrails of what was more like a ladder than a staircase and climbed up three stories until I came upon the miller and his assistant smiling broadly and covered in flour. The miller was happy to have visitors and educated us about his 30-year contract with the municipally owned mill where he made his livelihood grinding wheat, barley and hops for local breweries and bakeries. This is an arrangement Dutch millers have been having with local municipalities for about four hundred years. Wow, Dutch beer has actually been starting its life in a windmill for a long time.

Hundreds of years ago the Dutch used the more than 10,000 windmills that covered the landscape for everything from grinding grains to removing salt water from the polders or low lying lands they were reclaiming from the North Sea. Today there are some 1200 of them still in operation. The technology for windmills probably came  to the Netherlands from the Middle East brought home by the Crusaders in the 13^th Century. While that can’t be proven it is clear that the Dutch fully developed the use of the windmill and built their economy and their lives with the help of the wind which made them a major world power in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. Believe me, their lives still benefit from the wind because when we left the mill we went to a flowerbox café for some delicious local brew - and we could taste the wind in our beer.

Copyright © 2013 Gayle Madison