Witte Klavervier; a Dutch renaissance brewery
It was Wycher Geerlichs who ordered the conversion of the old smithy into a brewery and added the neighboring malthouse next door. It was the year 1651, halfway into the 17th century. In medieval city regulations there is already a clause that breweries should be housed into former smithies, probably because those buildings where meant to handle open fires from the start.

Early 14th century a very good tasting 'hoppenbeer' had come from Hamburg. This town was, like Zwolle, a hanseatic city with an internal market and a system of guild masters, foremen and apprentices. It didn't take long before the new method was known in the Low Countries and there one also started to cultivate hops on a large scale and drink homemade 'hoppenbeer'.

Zwolle was a forerunner in this respect and by the end of the 14th century there was no more Gruytbeer being sold. In 1605 there is a mentioning of 'Jopen Beer, brewed in Zwolle'. Further we found an official document about white beer in Zwolle, halfway into the 17th century.

In 1672 Zwolle and the brewery were attacked and occupied by armed forces of Fürstbischof Bernhard von Galen from Münster. Bernhard was nicknamed 'Bombing Berend' and the city was occupied for years. Many foreign troops where stationed in the city and in this year the brewmaster of Witte Klavervier died. He could very well have died because of this war situation, and the brewery came to a stop. Later the brewery flourished and remained a family business for a long time.

From later documents we learn that the owners of the brewery were in possesion of a 50% share of a small farm and adjoining land just outside of Zwolle. With the malt house and the land they were able to control the complete chain of production.

In the 18th century the brewery was closed down; beer had to be cheap and mass produced by that time. Factory workers were poor those days and drank tea and 'geneva'. There were a few breweries that resisted the trend but not a single one remained. Nowadays hardly anyone knows that the Netherlands were a leading beer nation once. You can read about that in our history section.

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Witte Klavervier brewery
Presently (2020) our focus is on opening a malthouse of our own technical design. Today there a situation has grown with many small breweries buying industrial malts. That is all very well, but we thought there might be room for special, local and artisan malts, perhaps from certain specific types of barley or other grains and specific and/or local soils.

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Witte Klavervier is Dutch beerhistory

I researched the mysterious and evasive gruit, grutt or grout. Apart from an old tax on beer it was a substance that was actually used for brewing. An article about this research was published by the Brewery History Society which you can find here together with an extended source page chronological ordered. Since then I wrote a more recent article with new insights on the subject that can be found on this website.
Another topic is the history of Porter. The name Porter was inspired by the idea London porters were big fans of this beer-style. This can very well be true, but at that time, early 18th century, there had been Poorter beer on the continent for many centuries. Poorter is pronounced Porter in English but has a very different meaning. Intriguing is the fact we know continental Poorter had come at the forefront of the transition from old-fashioned medieval beer-styles to styles that were no longer bound to the old rules that were holding back new developments.
Both above topics are passionately disputed and we should be alert to new clues, information and insights on them.
My friend Leen Alberts found an amazing series of Liege beer recipes in a 17th century notebook. To supplement that we collected sources on Liege beer covering three centuries. Out of this combined effort a completely new insight is dawning about this distinctive beer-style that was made predominantly with spelt. Please read about it in the history of Liege beer.

Frederik Ruis

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