The number of breweries in the Netherlands is back to ‘medieval levels’ when every town had its own brewery, says beer culture heritage organisation SENB.

There are now some 500 breweries in the Netherlands, a rise mainly to due the increase in small local beer makers, the organisation said.

At the beginning of the 1980s the Netherlands had some 20 breweries. Twenty years later the number was up to 66. It is only in the last 17 years that the brewery sector has seen an explosive growth.

‘The internet has given the popularity of brewing locally an enormous boost, especially among the young. Brewing craft beers has become part of a counter movement which favours locally made products over the mass production of the food industry,’ SENB chairman Jan Ausems says.

Apart from the big breweries, which produce 90% of market volume in the shape of pilsner, there are now some 450 small breweries. Half of the 500 brewers are too small to have their own brewery facilities and rent space from other brewers.