Red Lion roaring
The Red Lion in Venlo, Limburg is a magnet for beer lovers. Adrian Tierney-Jones had a look around
Even though it’s in Holland, a Heineken is not the sort of thing you order in the Red Lion (or De Roeëje Lieuw in the local dialect), a classy, cosy, thirst-inducing ‘brown bar’ in Venlo in the Dutch province of Limburg. Situated off the town centre, along a pedestrianised street, it is a long, rectangularshaped place, with the bar and its gleaming taps running alongside one wall.
There are old pictures and beer posters hanging up, brewery mirrors, a chalked beer menu, board games, beer books and a cabinet stocked with dozens of bottled beers.
Louis Klaassens is the bar’s energetic and enthusiastic young landlord, a man with a mission to be a flag-bearer for the beers of Limburg. No Heineken or Bavaria here then.
Instead, if you saunter in on an idyllic Sunday after a stroll round the old town as I did, you will be faced with a selection of 40+ draught and bottled beers, most of which are brewed in this southern wasp-waisted province that is sandwiched between Belgium and Germany. The rest of the beers come from the Belgian province of Limburg; there was also once a German Limburg but that is lost in the mists of history, though there are two towns with the name.
The Red Lion is a place where you immediately feel at home and want to make your local for the rest of your natural. Like me, you might imagine frenetic Friday nights, newspaper strewn Saturday lunchtimes, boisterous and boozy high days and holidays, all on the strength of your first visit. That is the mark of a .....
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By Adrian Tierney-Jones
Section : Spotlight
Page number : 32
