Grolsch is bubbly

Hello Hello. Need I say more? It is that day again. After a long hard week of work, it is time to finally switch of your computer for the next two days and forget about work! I will be brief today in Rons Bar as I know time is of the essence, especially on a Friday. Today I will be looking at the beer that seems to have taken South Africa by storm. There is currently a lot of buzz in the liquor stores and pubs about this Dutch beer with a ‘funny’ top. I am talking about Grolsch. Now the first thing that strikes anyone who sees this beer for the first time is the unique ’swingtop’ on the bottle. The first time I saw it I thought, is this a bottle of champagne due to this top it has? I know a lot of people who are just buying this beer just so they can ‘pop’ the cork. It is rather fun I must say opening a bottle of Grolsch!

But besides the top, let us now look at the actual contents of the bottle. Now I discovered something; Grolsch also comes in normal bottles and not just in this ’swingtop’. So may first taste of Grolsch was from a normal bottle. I took a sip and this beer was very fizzy. It was like drinking a coke. I then thought maybe it was just me try to get adjusted to a new beer. But the more I drank I was not impressed. So I decided to pour the beer into a glass and see what is behind all this ‘fizziness’. My thoughts were confirmed when I saw the beer producing millions of bubbles as if it were a fizzy soft drink. Usually beers produce a very small amount of bubbles but this Grolsch was really having a go at producing bubbles. So I knew that this was not the beer for me. All those bubbles do not bode well in terms of taste and certainly for someone with a stomach problem, they would find great difficulties in drinking this beer. But I braved on to complete the bottle and had a second just to make sure I did not by chance just have a bad bottle but the second bottle was just the same as the first. So my immediate conclusion was that; this is not a great beer.

I then decided to try the one that comes in the larger ’swingtop’ bottle to find out if there is a difference between that and the normal bottle. And there was a difference! The beer in the ’swingtop’ bottle did not produce as many bubbles and tasted a whole lot better. Think of it this way, the difference between Amstel in a bottle and a draft Amstel off the tap; that is the difference between these two Grolsch’s in my opinion. I actually enjoyed drinking Grolsch this time around.

So if you deciding to give Grolsch a go, try both the normal bottle and the larger ’swingtop’ bottle, I found there to be a distinct difference. But after all we should all be drinking the ’swingtop’ bottle because of the fun you experience opening it. I have not had enough Grolsch to make a judgment about its after effects from a whole night drinking it, but since it comes in at 5% alc. content, I am sure it will be a highly effective beer if you have too much of it! Giving the beer a rating out of 5, I will give Grolsch a low 3. I personally did not find it to be a great beer. There was nothing much to rant and rave home about it in terms of taste, if anything the bubbles put me off. I would say the only think I enjoy about this beer is that ’swingtop’!

That’s all for today, remember to drink responsibly, do not drink and drive and make sure you are over 18 years old before you drink alcohol. Have a great weekend. Cheers!