Shipping to 30+ countries

Shipping

Hoptimaal offers a wide variety of beers both in-store and online. If you can place an order, we usually have the product in stock (though mistakes can happen, unfortunately). Products that are in stock will be shipped the same day if ordered before 3:00 PM.

If we make an error with stock levels, you will be notified within 24 hours. In that email, we will offer you an alternative product, the right to a full refund, and a new delivery time. It's up to you how you'd like us to resolve the issue.

We ship all orders with DPD from the Netherlands. You can choose between:

  • Home delivery or delivery to your work
  • Delivery to a DPD pickup point near you

Shipping costs and the free-shipping threshold for your country are in the table below.

Deposit

On cans and bottles we charge the Dutch deposit (statiegeld): €0.15 per can and €0.10 per bottle (a little more for some bottles). It shows as a separate line in your cart. The deposit belongs to the Dutch deposit system: you can return the packaging in the Netherlands, not in deposit machines in other countries.

Shipping Costs by Country

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CountryShipping costReduced rateFree shipping from
Netherlandspickup point €6.95
home €8.50		–€75
Belgium€8.95–€100
Germany€13.50–€100
Denmark€15.95–€150
Austria€15.95–€150
Bulgaria€47.50€25 from €150not available
Estonia€17.50–€150
Finlandpickup point €24.95
home €29.95		home: €10 from €200pickup point €200
home €250
France€16.95–€150
Greece€29.50€15 from €150not available
Hungary€21.95€10 from €150€200
Ireland€15.95–€150
Italy€16.95–€150
Croatia€47.50€25 from €150not available
Latvia€17.50–€150
Lithuania€21.95€10 from €150€200
Luxembourg€12.95–€150
Poland€15.95–€150
Portugal€19.95€10 from €150€200
Romania€27.50€10 from €150not available
Spain€18.75–€150
Czech Republic€15.95–€150
Swedenpickup point €24.95
home €29.95		home: €10 from €200pickup point €200
home €250
Norway*Coming soon
United Kingdom*Coming soon
Switzerland*Coming soon

Delivery

DPD generally delivers within 24 hours after receiving the parcel. So if we have received your order before 15:00 on working days, in 99% of cases you will have your order at home the next day. It may sometimes happen that they need one day longer. You can follow this via the Track & Trace details you receive from us, so you can see exactly where your order is. DPD also gives you a time window of 2 to 4 hours in which your order will be delivered. Not at home? No problem! You can indicate yourself whether you want them to come by again tomorrow or whether they should deliver it to the nearest post office.

Do you have a question about the delivery of your beer? Feel free to contact us: customer service.

Returns

You have a cooling-off period of 14 days after you have received the product. Within this period you can register the product for return. The email you received stating that your order is on its way contains a link that you can use to easily and free of charge download and print a return label. Returning is free: we provide the return label and the shipping costs of your return are at our expense. After registering your return, you have another 14 days to send the product back. If you bought multiple items at once, the period starts after receipt of your last item.

How do I return or exchange a product?

  • Fill in the return form within 14 days after receipt. If you are unable to print the return form, please write at least the order number and your name on a piece of paper and include it with your return.
  • Register your return with our customer service. You can do this by sending an email to: info@hoptimaal.nl or by calling 085 -130 1591. Or print your return label yourself via the link in the email titled "Your order is on its way".
  • After registering your return, you have another 14 days to send the product back.
  • Then send your return back in its original condition and with the packaging. Products that are damaged or incomplete are not eligible for exchange or refund.

Please note: after the 14-day cooling-off period it is no longer possible to return your product.

What can you expect after returning your product?

After receiving your return, you will receive a confirmation from us. This can take 3 working days, but in general we process your return on the day we receive it. We will check your return to see whether your product meets our return conditions and will then get to work on the solution you want.

Do you want your money back?

  • We will refund the purchase amount within 3 working days after confirmation of receipt to the account with which you paid. If you want to receive the purchase amount in another way, please contact us about the possibilities.
  • In case of visible signs of use, missing accessories or missing packaging, you are no longer entitled to a refund. If the packaging is not returned entirely in its original condition, we won't make a fuss and you will in any case get 75% of the purchase amount back. This is very rarely the case; usually the full purchase amount is simply refunded.

Do you want to receive a new product?

After receiving your return, we will send the new product right away. If the product is no longer in stock, we will refund the purchase amount to the account with which you paid.

  • Is the new product cheaper? The remaining amount will be refunded to your account within 3 working days.
  • Is the new product more expensive? You will receive a payment request for the remaining amount. After receipt of payment, we will send the product immediately.
  • Do you want to receive the new product at a different address or on a different day? Please contact us.

Exceptions

Beer that has been opened will not be taken back. We also do not take back beer that you ordered at a discount because the shelf life is almost expired. Of course we state this clearly on the product page, so that you are not surprised by a limited best-before date.

The item may be returned to the address below:

Hoptimaal
Leeghwater 5
3825MR Amersfoort
Netherlands

Order before 3:00 PM on weekdays, shipped today.
Break-proof packaging

Your beers are always carefully packaged. If there is any damage during transit, we offer a guarantee. Not satisfied, money back.

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Beer School › Tripel · Smooth & Rounded

Belgian strong golden ale

Belgian strong golden ale is a very pale, strong and dry Belgian beer with a lot of carbonation, fruity yeast notes (often pear) and a firm bitterness. It feels lighter than the 7.5–10.5% alcohol would suggest.

  • Alcoholusually 7.5–10.5%
  • Entry levelFor those who have already tasted a bit

How it usually tastes

Bitter
Sweet
Sour
Roasted
Fruity
Full

Average for this style; every beer has its own accent.

What is it?

The base is pale pilsner malt with a good amount of sugar, continental hops and a fruity Belgian yeast. The beer is highly attenuated and therefore dry, and lighter in body than you would expect at that strength. Traditionally it gets its carbonation from bottle conditioning.

In the glass it is light yellow to gold, with a huge, rocky white head. In the aroma you find fruity esters, often pear, spicy or floral hops and a peppery alcohol, above an almost neutral malt. The bitterness is medium to high and lingers in the long, dry finish. The alcohol is noticeable, but soft and not hot.

It resembles a tripel and, according to the BJCP, is often confused with it. The difference: - Strong golden ale is usually paler, lighter in body, fresher and drier, with more fruit and more late hops. - Tripel is slightly darker and fuller, with more spicy yeast notes and less fruit.

An ordinary Belgian blond (6–7.5%) is maltier, less bitter and less strong.

Myth or fact?

Partly true

‘Belgian strong golden ale and tripel are the same.’

They resemble each other and are, according to the BJCP, often confused, but the style guides see two styles. Strong golden is usually paler, lighter, drier and fruitier; tripel spicier and fuller.

Partly true

‘Belgian strong golden ale and tripel are the same.’

Both are strong, golden-blond Belgian beers with a fruity-spicy yeast, a lot of carbonation and a dry finish. The strength overlaps too: according to the BJCP a tripel has 7.5–9.5% alcohol and a Belgian golden strong ale 7.5–10.5%. The BJCP therefore writes that strong golden is often confused with tripel.

Yet both the BJCP and the Brewers Association describe them as separate styles. According to the BJCP, strong golden is usually paler, lighter in body, fresher and drier than a tripel. The yeast gives more fruity esters, especially pear, and less spiciness, and there is more late-hop character. A tripel is slightly darker and fuller, with more emphasis on spicy yeast notes and less on fruit.

Partly true, then: closely related, but not the same.

Sources

Myth

‘You can taste how strong a beer is.’

Not always. Belgian strong golden ale has 7.5–10.5% alcohol, but according to the BJCP it feels lighter than you would expect at that strength. So look at the label.

Myth

‘You can taste how strong a beer is.’

The BJCP describes the mouthfeel of a Belgian golden strong ale as light to medium in body, lighter than the high starting gravity would suggest. The very high carbonation reinforces that light feel. The alcohol is noticeable, but soft and not hot. The Brewers Association writes of strong Belgian blond beers that they can be deceptively strong, with a relatively light body for such a strong beer.

The colour does not help you either. The beer is light yellow to gold, whereas with a strong beer many people expect something dark (see also the myth about dark beer).

What does tell you the strength is the alcohol percentage on the label. For this style that is, according to the BJCP, between 7.5 and 10.5%, and according to the Brewers Association between 7.1 and 11.2%. By comparison: a German pils has 4.4–5.2% according to the BJCP.

Sources

Myth

‘Dark beer is heavier and stronger than blond beer.’

Colour is no measure of alcohol: beer gets dark from roasted or darkly kilned malt. A black Irish stout usually has less alcohol than a golden-yellow tripel.

Myth

‘Dark beer is heavier and stronger than blond beer.’

The colour of beer comes mainly from the grain. The more caramelised, roasted or darkly kilned malt the brewer uses, the darker the beer. CraftBeer.com of the Brewers Association expressly adds that colour does not equal alcohol content or mouthfeel. A quality guide of the Brewers Association for the trade also writes that colour sometimes suggests strength, but often wrongly.

The style guidelines show it in black and white. An Irish stout is black from dark roasted malt or barley, but according to the BJCP has 3.8–5.0% alcohol. A Belgian tripel is deep yellow to light amber and has 7.5–9.5%. The Brewers Association gives the same picture: a dry Irish stout has 4.1–5.3% at a colour of 80+ EBC (black), a tripel 7.1–10.1% at 8–18 EBC (pale). Such a stout does not have to be heavy either: the BJCP calls it remarkably smooth, with a medium-light to medium-full body.

Of course there are also dark beers that are strong, such as imperial stout (8–12% according to the BJCP). That is due to the amount of sugar that was fermented, not to the colour.

Sources

Partly true

‘Blond is one beer style: a blond is always the same kind of beer.’

Belgian Blond Ale is a real style (6–7.5%), but on labels blond is mainly a colour. That ranges from a Trappist of 4.8% to a strong blond of 10%.

Partly true

‘Blond is one beer style: a blond is always the same kind of beer.’

The BJCP describes Belgian Blond Ale as a golden-blond, moderately strong Belgian beer of 6–7.5%. But the BJCP itself warns that many Belgian monastic and craft beers are called 'Blond' without being representative of that style.

The light monastic table beer, the Belgian Single (4.8–6%), is sometimes simply called a Blond; the BJCP deliberately avoids that name to prevent confusion. In addition there is an American Blonde Ale of 3.8–5.5%, a very different style with the same name. And among the Trappists alone, blond ranges from Chimay Gold (4.8%) and Westvleteren Blond (5.8%) to Chimay Green, a strong blond of 10%.

So look at the alcohol percentage and the description, not just at the word blond. Westmalle, too, stresses that the colour of a beer says nothing in itself about how heavy it is.

Sources

Where does it come from?

According to the BJCP, the Moortgat brewery developed the style after the First World War, as an answer to the growing popularity of pils. The beer was darker at first and had its current, very pale form in the 1970s. That beer is Duvel. Many beers in this style bear a name referring to the devil: according to the BJCP because of their strength and as a tribute to the original.

The brewery tells it somewhat differently. According to Duvel Moortgat, Albert Moortgat drew inspiration from English ales after the war, and the beer was first called Victory Ale; from 1923 it came onto the market as Duvel. That is the brewery's own story; we have not found an independent source for those details.

How to pour it

A good starting point: 4–7 °C in a tulip glass (advice from CraftBeer.com).

Did you like this? Then try Saison →

Similar to: Tripel, Blond

Terms

Top fermentation (high fermentation)
Fermentation with yeast that rises to the top during fermenting (ale yeast), usually at a higher temperature than bottom fermentation; this is how pale ale, IPA, stout, weizen and Belgian styles such as witbier, dubbel and tripel, among others, are made.
Bottle conditioning
At bottling, some sugar or wort is added to the beer, so that the yeast ferments again in the bottle and the beer gets its carbonation naturally; you therefore often see a layer of yeast at the bottom.
Dry (highly attenuated)
A beer that feels little sweet, because the yeast has converted most of the sugars.
Mouthfeel / body
How a beer feels in your mouth: how full or thin it is (the body), how much carbonation it has and whether it is, for example, creamy or rather astringent.
Esters
Aroma compounds that arise during fermentation and give beer a fruity aroma and flavour, for example of plum or raisin in an imperial stout; they are common in top-fermented beers (ales).
Sources for this page
  • Order by 3 pm, shipped todayOn weekdays, straight from our shop in Amersfoort.
  • Packed to surviveSomething broken anyway? You get your money back.
  • 4.8 on GoogleThat is what our customers give us.
  • Earn points on every order1 point per euro, 100 points = €2.50 off.

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