Heineken Experience

A brewery you can walk through

The Heineken Experience fills the first Heineken brewery, on the Stadhouderskade at the edge of the Museum Quarter. It is now a museum about the beer and how it is made. Four levels of historical objects, product exploration and interactive exhibits take you through the brewing of a pilsner. Two drinks in the museum cafés finish the visit.

Is it worth the walk? If you like seeing how things are made, yes. If you want to stand inside a real nineteenth-century factory, also yes. It is a company's visitor centre as much as a museum, and it does not pretend otherwise. The designers said it themselves: they wanted people to see it, touch it and taste it.

The story

The brewery was built in 1867. It was the first Heineken brewery and the company's main one until 1988. Then a larger, more modern plant went up on the outskirts of the city, and this one stopped brewing.

People had been shown round even while it still worked, so a tour was not a new idea. In 1991 part of the complex was pulled down, and the rest opened to visitors as the Heineken Treat and Information Centre. Ten years later it took the name Heineken Experience.

From October 2007 the museum closed for a rebuild by BRC Imagination Arts, a design firm from Burbank, California. It reopened on 3 November 2008. About two years later it won a Thea Award in the category Brand Experience. Another renovation ran for 14 months, from 2021 to the end of November 2022. The façade and entrance were redone, and the reception area was enlarged so the queue no longer stood out in the street.

The building is also an Anchor Point on the European Route of Industrial Heritage, a network of 845 sites in 29 countries.

What to look for

Start outside. Cross to the other side of the Stadhouderskade and look at the whole building. It dates from 1867, and the entrance and front were renewed only a few years ago. You can see an old factory and a modern visitor centre sharing one address.

Inside, follow the levels in order. The exhibits are built around the brewing process, step by step, so slow down in the interactive rooms and let them explain it. Look for the old brewing objects too. They show how beer was made here before the move to the new plant.

Use the two drinks as a rest. Sit in the museum café, look at the converted spaces around you, and let your feet recover before you walk on.