america, i miss your microbrews.

in amsterdam, we were spoiled by delicious beers.

our coworker/friend frequents a website that lets you in on all the best beer secrets of pretty much every city everywhere so we had a long list for amsterdam.

stop #1: Brouwerij't Ij which also happens to be the tallest wooden windmill in holland. COOL, right?!

and they had delish sheep's cheese. YES, please! 

stop #2 was near the anne frank house - perfect idea after an hour of depressing museum touring? sure.  they had probably 20 beers on tap. they had some beers from the windmill brewery that we hadn't had and also some other locally brewed amsterdam beers.  

giving us recommendations - i asked lots of questions

last, but absolutely not least, our favorite spot was the beer temple.

oh, the beer temple.  it was behind dam square, so right in the center of town and boasts the title of "Europe's first American Beer Bar!"

they served 30 beers on tap and had an additional 60+ in bottles.  while they didn't have any of my absolute favorites from the 38 taps at the cville mellow mushroom, we did go the remaining 5 nights of our trip to enjoy hoppy deliciousness.

we also got some new dutch facebook friends out of our beer temple obsession! score, i already have bartender friends for when i move there. 

all is not lost, back here in italy, however. despite this being wine country, it seems that they are hopping on the microbrew bandwagon! trip to rome, anyone?

more on amsterdam later, promise! 

x