News has reached us of buyers for the two breweries that were closed earlier this year. In Utrecht, the Leckere brewery will get new owners and a brewer promoted from the "Brewers without Breweries" section of the Guide - as we do not know how public this knowledge is we will not name names at this time. Save to say his beers are good.

Meanwhile Maximiliaans' café and house brewery has been acquired by the Beiaard group of beer cafés and brewing is expected to get under way again in the summer.

It will be interesting to see what the Amsterdam brewery is called, as one of the Dutch brewing scene's longest stay residents, Piet de Jongh of the Beyerd café in Breda, has announced that the first test brew for public consumption from his Beyerd brewery will go on sale in September, the same month that Interbrew will close the city's Oranjeboom brewery. The official opening day will be 1st April 2004.

The Dutch answer to the Philippeville situation (above) is Flevoland. From having no functioning breweries in October 2002, the Netherlands' newest and flattest province now has three.

For Kasparus of Nagele it is a welcome return from a period of commission-brewing in Belgium. Although the official excuse is a return of radiant good health, the Guide thinks that even the most flexinble brewery would have difficulty keeping up with the lateral thinking of brewers Kasper Katuin and Eddy Elswijk and their girlfriends. At Koelschip in Almere Stad there is a similar position. Beers had been commissioned for some time from a small brewery in Germany but now come in house again. The third newcomer is Kemphaan in neighbouring Almere is producing Kemphaan Blond and Bruin (both 6%) in relatively serious quantities, though the Guide is skeptical about the absence of any direct reference to brewing or breweries on their website (www.kemphaan.nl).

The smallest of the microbreweries, or the home brewers whose hobbies got out of hand, if you prefer, have banded together to form an organisation to promote their wares.

Koningshoeven has ruffled a few feathers by claiming to produce the world's first Trappist wheat beer. The officially recognised Trappist breweries are understandably miffed at this defrocked brewer claiming Trappist links. Our fellow beer nuts in Belgium have sided with the abbeys. The official PINT line is awaited with interest. What nobody seems to have pointed out is that Koningshoeven has been brewing wheat beer for ages. Oirschots Wit was produced there after the Kroon brewery was axed and before that they had helped out with production of Raaf Witbier when other brewers had capacity problems. The words "hype", "marketing" and "sell a sucker their own boots if try hard enough" come to mind.