Is the Heineken Experience in Amsterdam Worth Visiting?

Are you planning a trip to Amsterdam and wondering if the Heineken Experience is worth visiting?

Before my own trip to Amsterdam, I was on the fence about visiting, as I thought it might be “too touristy” for me.

On most of my international trips, I typically like a mix of tourist attractions and off the beaten path adventures. I try to avoid places that are considering total tourist traps, but I’m not going to miss spots like the Eiffel Tower or Big Ben because they’re considered “touristy”.

However, I’m happy to report that I thoroughly enjoyed our time at the Heineken Experience, and I would recommend it to anyone visiting Amsterdam for the first time!

So, I wanted to write a full guide for anyone else who might be unsure whether they’ll like it. In this post, I’ll break down exactly what to expect when visiting the Heineken Experience, so you can decide if it’s right for you!

What is the Heineken Experience?

The Heineken Experience is an interactive experience in Amsterdam that walks you through the history of the Heineken brand, Holland’s most famous beer!

The museum (for lack of a better word) is housed in the old Heineken Brewery, and they’ve kept a lot of the structure and equipment, like huge copper tanks in the brewing room, to really give you a feel for what it used to be like.

I will probably use the words experience, museum, and tour interchangeably throughout this blog post because it’s hard to fit it into a box!

The experience itself mixes different elements together to keep it fun and engaging, including guided tour portions, self-paced museum portions, interactive elements, photo ops, and of course, beer drinking!

I had no idea what to expect when booking the experience, so below, I’ll walk you through each stage of it.

But first, here are all the important details about the Heineken Experience you may need to know:
📍 Location: Stadhouderskade 78, 1072 AE Amsterdam, Netherlands
🚇 How to Get There: Take Metro Line 52 to Vijzelgracht station
⏰ Hours: 10:30am to 7:30pm (Sunday thru Thurs) & 10:30am to 9:00pm (Friday and Saturday)
💰 Cost: 25€ for standard ticket (2 beers included); 30€ for ticket + rooftop access (3 beers included)
🎟️ Tickets: Timed-entry. Book on GetYourGuide for maximum flexibility
⌛ Duration: 2 hours on average, but you can stay longer!
👤 Age Restriction: You must be 18 or older to visit

The Heineken Experience: What to Expect

Buying Tickets and Arrival

Tickets for the Heineken Experience are sold in 15-minute time slots, starting at 10:30am and ending 2 hours and 15 minutes before closing. So on Fridays and Saturdays, the last tour time is 6:45pm, and on all other days, the last tour time is 5:15pm.

I highly recommend buying your tickets for the Heineken Experience in advance of your trip, as certain time slots do sell out!

Based on our experience (and their website), I also recommend booking a time slot in the late morning, if it works with your itinerary.

Like most attractions, it gets busier as the day goes on. When we arrived for our 11:30am tour, there were only a few people in line. However, when we left around 2:00pm, the line was much much longer.

While buying a ticket does guarantee you a spot, you may have to wait for the next tour to start if it’s super busy, and it’s a much more enjoyable experience overall with less people!

So, take my advice and book your Heineken Experience tickets in advance, preferably before 1:00pm.

Note: We personally booked our tickets through GetYourGuide, as the cost was the same as going direct, and I prefer GYG’s extremely flexible cancellation policy.

Guided Tour

After scanning your ticket and getting your free beer token, the first stop of the Heineken Experience is an English-based tour with a guide (called a Heineken Ambassador).

While the tour is in English, they do have audio versions available via your phone in other languages (I recommend bringing headphones if you have them, or you can just listen through your phone’s speaker).

Of course, this portion of the experience is meant to be lively, with the tour guide doing the typical “How is everybody doing today!!!” introduction.

Your tour guide will take you through a few different rooms as they explain the beginnings of the Heineken brand and test your knowledge on Heineken history.

For example, did you know Heineken was the first beer served in the Eiffel Tower?! It was also the first beer imported into the United States, after the Prohibition ended in 1933! Who knew.

One of the coolest parts of the first room was seeing a 65-foot tall silo, where malted barley used to be stored after being delivered via ships on the canal and transferred to the rooftop.

Museum Portion

After exploring the first few rooms with a tour guide, the experience continues with museum-style exhibits. At your own pace, you’ll get to wander through various rooms and learn more about Heineken’s history.

This includes details (displayed on placards and also via the mobile audio guide) on the brewery’s founding by Adriaan Heineken in 1864, as well as the journey to becoming the global brand it is today.

The coolest part of this portion is all of the old artifacts they have on display. For example, they have the original brewery’s cornerstone, which was laid in 1867 by Adriaan’s mother.

And as you walk through history, you’ll get to see the progression of the brand itself, including the different variations of bottle shape, size, and label designs that existed until the iconic green version was introduced.

Pssst: Don’t wait! Book your Heineken Experience ticket now for a morning time slot to avoid crowds, especially in the museum portion where it can get backed up 🍻

Brewing and Bottling Process

Once you’ve completed the self-paced museum portion, you’ll be back with a guide to learn more about the brewing and bottling process.

Our female guide explained the 4 main ingredients of a Heineken (water, barley, hops, and yeast), with a special emphasis on the fact that only a handful of people in the world know the exact recipe.

Then, you’ll enter my favorite room of the tour: the Brew Room, where the original copper brewing tanks are still located. The room also featured beautiful white brick and large stained glass windows, which our guide told us were original to the factory!

This is also where we learned that the beer served at the Heineken Experience is the freshest Heineken beer you’ll ever taste, as it arrives every morning directly from their brewery in Zoeterwoude (30 miles outside of Amsterdam).

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After exiting the Brew Room, next up is the “Becoming the Bottle” portion of the tour, which I’ll admit was a bit cheesy.

Basically, it’s just a large theater room with fun lighting effects where you watch the bottling process on screens around you. (You can also opt out of this if you have issues with enclosed spaces or flashing lights.)

Upon exiting the theater room, you’ll be treated to your first FREE Heineken beer of the tour!

Then, you’ll have the option to customize your own Heineken bottle for €7, which you pick up after the tour is over! This was the perfect souvenir for my husband!

Free Beer and Photo Ops

By this point, you’ve made it through the majority of the tour! The next few rooms are optional and more fun than educational.

You can explore several fun photo ops and interactive experiences, like biking through the streets of Amsterdam with a case of Heineken, or learning about Heineken’s relationship with Major League Soccer (MLS).

At the end, you’ll enter the most exciting portion of the experience: the bar!!! (I’m partially kidding, but we ended up spending a lot more time hanging out here than we planned, haha).

There are several connected rooms, with a large bar where you can cash in your token from the beginning of the tour for your second free beer! Besides standard Heineken beer, they also have Heineken Silver (low-cal, light lager), Heineken 0.0 (non-alcoholic), plus water and soft drinks!

There’s also fun bar games like corn hole, shuffleboard, and foosball to keep you busy.

But our favorite part was participating in “The Draught Challenge”, where you learn how to pour the perfect draft Heineken beer. The goal is to get the bottom of the foam head right in the middle of the red star (Similar to the harp concept with Guinness, but I had no idea this existed until this challenge!).

You can stay in this bar area for as long as you want, and pay for additional beers if you want to! You’ll exit through the gift shop, which actually had some pretty cute options!

They also have a rooftop bar that costs an extra 5€ and includes another free beer. (You can purchase this package when you buy your ticket or just add it on when you get there).

We didn’t have time to visit the rooftop too, but I wish we did, as our guide said you can try different “foam infusions”. Plus, it’s supposed to have great views of Amsterdam from above!

So, Is the Heineken Experience Worth It?

If you couldn’t tell after reading this post… yes, I do think the Heineken Experience is worth visiting!!!

While some portions were a little cheesy, I learned so much about the Heineken brand and how it became Holland’s most famous beer.

Plus, we had a ton of fun throughout the tour, especially at the end!

Again, if you do decide to visit, I recommend buying your tickets in advance to secure an early morning time slot with fewer crowds.

And if you’re looking for another, smaller brewery to visit during your time in Amsterdam, we loved the beer garden under a windmill at Brouwerij ‘t IJ.