• The Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Back Issues
    • Features
      • Brewing
      • People
      • Culture
      • History
      • Food
      • Travel
      • Styles
      • Homebrewing
    • Departments
      • Coming Soon
      • Columns
        • Visiting the Pub
        • Behind the Bar
        • It’s My Round
        • The Beer Enthusiast
        • The Beer Curmudgeon
        • In The Brewhouse
        • Michael Jackson
        • The Taster
        • Beyond Beer
        • Your Next Beer
        • Industry Insights
      • What’s Brewing
      • Pull Up A Stool
      • Travel
        • Beer Travelers
        • A Closer Look
        • Beer Weekend
      • Stylistically Speaking
      • Home Brewing
      • Beer Talk
      • Beer Books
  • Events
    • World Beer Festival Raleigh – July 7, 2018
    • World Beer Festival Durham – Oct. 6, 2018
    • World Beer Festival Columbia – Feb. 17, 2018
    • Event Calendar
    • Brewery Tastings & Events
    • Beer Explorer
  • Reviews
    • Staff Reviews
    • Beer Talk
    • Flights
    • Book Reviews
  • Learn
    • What is Beer?
      • Water
      • Malt
      • Hops
      • Yeast
    • Styles
      • Lagers
      • British and North American Ales
      • Belgian and Continental Ales
      • Wheat Ales
      • Stouts and Porters
      • Seasonal and Specialty
    • Glossary
  • News
    • New on the Shelves
  • Web Only
    • Blogs
      • Daniel Bradford
      • John Holl
      • Acitelli on History
      • The Beer Bible Blog
      • Bryson
    • Video
    • Photos
    • Podcasts
Menu
logo
  • Advertise with Us
  • Subscriber Services
  • Retailer Services
Give a Gift Subscribe
Food Travel Features

Bitterballen: The Ultimate Bar Snack?

All About Beer Magazine - Volume 36, Issue 2
May 1, 2015 By Stephen Beaumont

Bitterballen

Visit almost any Dutch bar and you will find on the menu a snack called bitterballen. Savory and meaty, if eaten too hot they can lay waste to your mouth like a small explosion of napalm, while if too cool they can become a gummy mess. When made from scratch in-house, they can be a flavorful delight, dipped in the ever-present ramekin of mustard, while when served from a pre-made package, as they usually are, they can offer a tricky mix of gumball-hard exterior and soupy middle.

Yet despite all of these qualities, good and bad, bitterballen may be the world’s finest bar snack, seemingly tailor-made for eating alongside chilled lager or light ale.

RELATED: Dutch Modern: The Fall and Rise of Beer in the Netherlands

Effectively a type of croquette (kroket in Dutch), bitterballen provide just the right amount of salty and spicy richness in their chopped meat, butter and broth mixture, chilled until firm, breaded and then deep-fried. They are neither so filling that drinkers will lose their appetites after a plateful, nor so sparse that one is left wanting more. In fact, unless sharing a plate with more than one other person, the snack-sized order normally served in a bar is usually just enough.

Best of all, when bitterballen are well-made, they are excellent, and when they’re pulled from a bag in the freezer and plunged into hot oil, well, they’re still pretty damned good.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Follow @allaboutbeer

Beer in your inbox

More Like This

  • Poaching Brewers
  • with Rudi Ghequire
  • California Farmers Markets Add Beer

Most Popular

  • Oskar Blues Brewery Takes Limited Release Death by Coconut National
  • Miller Coors Buys Minority Stake In Terrapin Beer Co.

The Magazine

  • Advertise with Us
  • Subscribe
  • Give a Gift
  • Staff
  • Subscriber Services
  • Retailer Services

Learn Beer

  • Reviews
  • Back Issues
  • Articles
  • Writer Guidelines
  • Internship Program

Events

  • World Beer Festival
  • Craft Beer Events
  • News

All About Beer

  • P.O. Box 110346
  • Durham, NC 27709
  • CONTACT