Bloggy Quickness, Featuring Amsterdam.

Are you following my twitter thing yet? It's that thing over there, down on the left. I've been using it for stuff that I don't have time am too lazy to blog and yet might be useful. I resisted for a while. Now I'm not sure how I ever got along without DRUNK HULK.

So... spring and summer travel plans. What are yours?

Maybe you'd like to go to Amsterdam. There's an 80 Beers guide for that, you know. Ron Pattinson still maintains his guide online, although you can also buy a dead-tree version. I own one, although I think it's an older edition. But I've used it. It works.

Finally, here's a free one: Mr. Chris Owen put this five-pager together for his own use. He has generously agreed to share it with you.

Then there's the Van Gogh museum. Saying you don't like Van Gogh is like saying you don't like the Beatles, it's either ignorant or a fucking lie.

Tomorrow (or else pretty soon): London. Or England. Or Britain, even. Whichever turns out to be larger.

Our Man in Amsterdam.

There's a new weapon in the growing Cogan & Mater arsenal: Around Amsterdam in 80 Beers. This one's written by Tim Skelton. I don't really know Mr. Skelton, yet. I haven't seen the book. But there is virtually zero chance that the book is anything but clever and useful. (See: Around Bruges, Brussels and London.)

Most of the you know the format, but I'm going to re-hash it for the rest of the class: Eighty of the very best places to drink real beer in Amsterdam. A featured beer for each spot. That's it. Simple and elegant and damned handy. Just the thing to pull out after excusing yourself from a companion who wants to spend hours browsing the tulip market.

I know about seven really excellent places to drink beer in Amsterdam. Can't wait to learn about 73 more. More than half the fun is in flipping through, fantasizing and planning another Amsterdam trip that may or may not ever come.

And congrats to Tim Skelton. I've got a very clear idea of the effort it takes to make a book like this. A hell of a lot of fun, and a hell of a lot of work.

Not a Run of the Molen Place in my IJ.

See Podge, I couldn't wait to steal your phrase. Damn if I didn't go ahead and give you credit for it.

This is all a cheap segue into more of our Amsterdam adventures. I'll cut right to it, for you poor souls who don't think "beer" when you think of Amsterdam. About 20 minutes walk southeast of the central train station is a windmill that looms over a small brewery. The brewery is called IJ, pronounced "eye" and named for the huge puddle that makes Amsterdam what it is and occasionally inspires me to sing like Brel and Bowie.

Inside the brewery is a slightly shabby little pub that opens at 3 o'clock sharp. Reportedly this used to be a bath house for the neighborhood. Now it hosts a healthy mix of locals and tourists bathing their taste buds in fresh, creamy beer.

Six of its beers were available on our visit. One of the most interesting was Struis, a tart and fruity ale at 9 percent strength. I believe the missus' favorite was the IJwit, a Belgian-style white beer with Hefeweizen leanings... bubble-gum and bananas in the nose, yum. My personal favorite was the lightest of the bunch, the Plzen. Grassy and bitter with a citric edge, very refreshing.

We tried everything they had. You can see why I married her. Why she married me, I have no idea.

If you take the family to Amsterdam, here's a scheme for you: Say you're taking them to see a real Dutch windmill. Then you get to drink nice beer and avoid the Red Light District too. Everybody wins.