What makes a Heineken pint a Heineken? Is it its crisp flavour, golden colour, or something absolutely different? If you guessed other, then you’re right. Heineken likes to tout their foamy 3 cm high dome lid is the key distinguishing feature that separates its self from all other brews.
Thanks to Heineken Global Ambassador, Franck, I learned the finer points and merits of keeping your ‘head’ on when it comes to drinking beer. You see, the real reason for keeping a head, or foam, on the pint is to keep your drink cold. CO2 is formed through an endothermic reaction, causing a massive cold snap in the environment, dropping it to -35 C. While a lot of that is released into the environment, it’s a good start at cooling your bevvy.
Foam dome meet Franck’s shiny dome. Coincidence? Helps to get the job if you look like your product!
A good layer of head is also going to protect your beer from oxidizing and thus, going flat. While head should only last 10-15 minutes, Franck demonstrated some no-nos for restoring it like adding salt, clinking the top of the pint glass heavily with another pint to shake it up (never seen that one), or decanting the beer from one glass to another (seems a bit silly, definitely never ever seen this done .) While learning about the finer points of foam was enlightening, I think the most important thing that I learned was after the talk chatting with Franck about the finer points of the standard smallish 330 Ml pint glasses (pintjes) they serve in Holland, Belgium and other parts of Europe. The reason for smaller glasses is to preserve the quality of the head, and so that you’re done your beer before it goes stale. Of course! European efficiency all the way!
Some interesting facts about Franck. He claims to have served at the bar where the 90s hit ‘meme’ song, “Who The Fuck Is Alice” was born and claimes he was partially responsible for writing it. Don’t believe me? Here’s the actual wiki stub below. While he’s not gallivanting around the world teaching bartenders and wannabes like myself how to pour the perfect shiny Star pint , he also teaches tennis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gompie
The song “Living Next Door to Alice” was listened to on a regular basis in café Gompie in Nijmegen. When the name “Alice” had passed, it was common for the disk jockey Onno Pelser to turn the volume down and the entire café would scream “Alice, who the fuck is Alice?”. Rob Peters, director of a record company, happened to visit café Gompie one evening and witnessed this show. He approached his friend, the singer Peter Koelewijn, and one day later the song was recorded. Gompie was chosen for the artist name.
The single became a hit in the Benelux and 80 other countries. In the United Kingdom and the United States, a censored version was released with the name “Alice, who the bleep is Alice?”. This charted in Britain (though was less popular than Smokie’s own re-recording of the track with Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown) but made no impact in the US.
You can guess what we went home with…..
Laser engraving was available to personalize your Heineken pintjes!
Heisenberg LIVES!
