Amsterdam–First bar review

The first bar I want to review was one we found our first day exploring. 

The Het Elfde Gebod of Amsterdam is located near the Centraal Station in Amsterdam and was right around the corner from our hotel.

 

A fairly unassuming and traditional looking bar (without the billowing smoke of marijuana flowing out), we decided to give it a try….especially as it literally opened as we walked by.  It was fate.

Inside was a clean and elegant (although somewhat small) bar that purported to have over 100 different kinds of beers, specializing it seemed in Belgium's.

I think Debi was in heaven.

 

I won’t go into reviewing every beer I drank (I would be here far to long), but I will say the selection was excellent and the barman definitely knew his beers (especially later when Anthony came in and they broke the Beer Bible).  I was particularly impressed that they had the specialized glass for each brew, and if I were going to pick a favorite, I would say the Guillotine . 

I know Debi made some friends there (she has pictures of them somewhere), and the good thing was it being local to our hotel….thus, when Simon and I actually had to work, we had a good meeting place fairly close.

If you are a small group, I would highly recommend this bar…..although to have full disclosure, I will include one negative story about this place. 

During the conference, after our evening event we decided to go out for a few more drinks.  I will let Simon describe the Pied Piper Scene of everyone waiting for me to go drinking, but for the time being lets just say I had 20 people ready to go.  Thinking I had the perfect spot scoped out, we headed to the “Gebold” only to be turned away at the door.  It appears they wanted to remain a local bar and not have a load of tourists come in.  To say that they lost a lot of money (and repeat biz from that particular group who then kept going to the “Piano Bar”) is an understatement.  There were some serious drinkers in that crowd, and I can only imagine an easy $2K for them that night (at least).  That being said, I still enjoyed the bar….and as I said, would highly recommend if you were in a small group.