Perfecting the Pour with Heineken

Before I officially became a card-carrying member of the trade press, I was a barista at a well-known coffee chain. Through my experience, the phrase “the perfect pour” meant steaming a pitcher of milk to perfection and nailing the foam-to-milk ratio in a cappuccino. 

For those in the bar and restaurant industry, the perfect pour means something entirely different. While I never tried my hand at bartending professionally, I received an opportunity courtesy of Heineken during its Master Class event, which was held for media members last week in New York.

The event offered a history lesson on the brand’s heritage (#MoreBehindTheStar) and featured artifacts from the Heineken Experience Museum in Amsterdam like the Medialle d’Or, which was awarded to Heineken at the Exposition Internationale des Industries Maritimes et Fluviales in Paris in 1875. The award is still featured on the brand’s label.

Since the brand was founded in 1873, the Heineken family has used the same original recipe. The company’s global brew master, Willem van Masberghe—who stars in Heineken’s newest TV ads with award-winning actor Benicio Del Toro—explained what ingredients go into the beer and what the brewing process is like.

“The global master brewer guards the recipe, never changes it and guides brewers in product development,” van Masberghe said.

Heineken’s recipe requires only three natural ingredients: water, barley and hops. The brand uses the purist water possible, van Masberghe explained, and barley serves as the beer’s source of starch and sugar. The hops provide a pungent taste and give the beer its aroma. Heineken uses hops to add a little bitterness to balance out the taste, van Masberghe said.

While yeast is an important part of the brewing process, it is not an ingredient in the beer. Yeast converts the sugars into alcohol, and Heineken’s A-Yeast produces a fruity flavor that is filtered out after fermentation, van Masberghe explained.

“We brew in horizontal tanks for a more distinct flavor and consistency,” van Masberghe said. Fermentation takes seven days, and it takes 28 days to process the fermented beer. Every batch is inspected, tasted, and approved or rejected by the company’s brew masters.

“Anyone can become a brewer,” van Masberghe said. However, it takes 15 years of training to become a Heineken brew master. Learning how to perfectly pour a Heineken draft takes a little less time though. After the history lesson, I hoped behind the bar to give it my best shot.

According company officials, it takes five steps to pour a perfect Heineken draft: rinse the glass to make it clean and cold, pour at a 45-degree angle for a full head, skim off the foam at a 45-degree angle to seal the head, check that the head sits on the horizontal line of the star on the glass, and serve on a Heineken coaster with the logo facing the customer. The server should top it off with, “Enjoy your Heineken.”

I passed the test, but the 45-degree angles were tricky. Maybe it’s best I only stuck to coffee, but I sure did enjoy that Heineken.