Organic beer
For some time, all our beers were certified as organic, but we recently departed from our organic recipe in the case of some beers. The main reason why some beers are no longer organic lies mainly with the hops. Hops are one of the basic ingredients of beer, but it is a rather difficult crop to grow organically because it is very vulnerable to diseases. The bitter hop species are particularly vulnerable. This makes it extremely difficult to grow bitter hops organically, and only small quantities are grown in this way.
If you want to brew beer using organic bitter hops, you have to choose from a limited number of species while ignoring other, non-organic hop species that have wonderful flavours.
Not only that, the organic bitter hops often have to be imported from distant places such as New Zealand which are free from the diseases that can attack hops. Of course, you also have to think about how eco-friendly it is to bring your ingredients all the way from New Zealand in a diesel-powered ship.
It was for these reasons that we switched to non-organic, bitter hop species for some of our beers. This means our IJwit, IPA, Zatte, Paasij, IJbok, I.P.A. and IJndejaars are no longer organic beers. Natte, Columbus and Struis, on the other hand, remain organic as before.