Yesterday I went to a shop that was on my to-visit-list for a while called “De Man van Drank” (The Booze Man). I heard about it a while ago and it was described as whole sale store for mostly beer, closely linked to Bier & Co, the main Dutch importer for brands like Anderson Valley, BrewDog, Flying Dog and such. There are several stores through out the Netherlands, but I visited in Den Bosch.

The store more or less is a big warehouse with loads of boxes and crates of beer. I wasn’t sure what to expect but this was about it, although I expected there to be more. Not necessarily more variety, but a larger stock. Also, the way it was set up was kind of a mess. Brands weren’t together, styles were spread out with American IPAs sitting next to kegs of Jupiler and Trappist beers.

Redeeming factors? Certainly! Nice people, and it’s quite wallet friendly if you’re up for buying a box of something. You can’t buy single bottles (which I expected), but buying 24 of something there is a lot cheaper than buying 24 singles somewhere else, in my case (pun intended) about 26%.

I gave in to my weakness and bought a case of Flying Dog’s Wildeman Farmhouse IPA, which I technically could have done without. But then again, now I’ve got a summers supply of a great IPA and I’m quite happy with it. Of course, my mind started working on a beer tasting I could host somewhere. Still thinking about that though!