It's almost two years now since a small delegation of Bier&Co had an almost religious experience in Bodegraven. We enjoyed a great lunch at Brewery De Molen and had some beers that kept ringing in our ears for a long time. Top that with the very pleasant company of brewer maestro Menno Olivier and you can understand it was a terrific experience. If you understand Dutch, see  http://bit.ly/cyaqn7 and read all about it.

We're all two years older now, have been given awards (or not), learned a lot of new things and brewed some astonishing beers (them) and enjoyed some astonishing beers (us).

We think it's about time to join forces and put our shared beer passion together.

And so, proudly we announce Bier&Co Amsterdam will be taking care of most of Brewery De Molen's distribution in The Netherlands (and the rest of the world) from today!

The award for tenth best brewery in the World!

For those who are unfamiliar with Brouwerij De Molen: it is a small scale Dutch craft brewery for whom the Sartrian credo   'compromising, that's for the others' represents both a Sartrian existentialism as well as a necessity.

Right. Think about that.

With creativity that sometimes borders total madness, beers are sculpted here that are surprising, innovative, and pretty tasty. Old brewing techniques are paired with modern experiments, lagering on casks is every day business and when they feel like it, they'll commandeer some malt normally reserved for whisky distilllers only. They're not afraid to use the most expensive ingredients either. The most expensive? Yes.

For example, see the picture below of an 18 cl bottle of Kopi Loewak, an Imperial Stout crafted with the world's most expensive coffee. This civet coffee is rare: coffee berries are being eaten by the civet cat who digests the berry but not the bean. This ferments in the civet's bowels and when searching its excrements this delicacy is found, roasted et voila. You will understand this production process is both rare and time consuming - hence the ridiculous price.

As said, De Molen produces small scale craft beer. This means some beers are a single appearance only and 'year round beers' can be sold out. The 2010 ratebeer.com worsened the situation dramatically - all across the globe people now crave De Molen.

Ratebeer's list is compiled by consumers world wide who rate beers - it's that simple. The list is remarkabky dominated by big, bold, black American brews and so De Molen's tenth spot on the Best Brewery of The World List is truly an achievement. It means it actually is Best European brewery. Also, De Molen is the only Dutch Brewery in this global top-100. Hel & Verdoemenis (Hell and Damnation) is listed 92nd in the Best Beers of the World.

There is so much more we can say about De Molen and it's beers - we will, keep watching our site. For now, we congratulate Menno Olivier and his team at the brewery - three cheers!

So, where do you get these beers? Send us an e-mail at r.kempen@bierenco.nl and we'll try and hook you up with a local purveyor of fine ales, world wide. Interested in becoming a territorial distributor? Well - shoot us a mail too!