Pure craftmanship starts here
Alfa Beer ingredients
Brewing award-winning beer doesn't happen by chance. Besides our family recipe and the craftsmanship of our brewers, it's the four ingredients that create the distinctive, full-bodied taste of Alfa beers. We deliberately brew using only the four traditional beer ingredients of the highest quality, without any additives. The result is an authentic, high-quality beer that consistently wins international awards year after year.
100% Pure natural spring water
In the heart of Dutch Limburg lies a natural wonder: one of the few officially recognized springs in the Netherlands, certified by the Ministry of Health. We are the only brewery in the Netherlands brewing with certified spring water. Our 100% pure, natural spring water fell as rain in the Eifel region during a time when rainwater was still pure and clean—approximately 6,000 years ago! Through a natural process of horizontal filtration through layers of chalk and marlstone, the water achieves a rare purity.
Our certified, pure spring water is so pristine that we can use it directly in our brewing kettles—and you can taste this purity. This natural treasure gives every Alfa beer its distinctive sparkling freshness and full-bodied flavor. Because nature provides only a limited amount of this precious resource, our water supply is restricted. We handle our spring water with care to ensure it never runs out. That’s why each bottle of Alfa beer carries a unique number, enabling us to track the use of our spring water—an homage to the exclusivity of our most essential ingredient.
Barley malt
We brew 100% all-malt beer, ensuring a refined and pure taste. Moreover, we primarily use summer barley—the ideal foundation for a clear, full-bodied, and beautifully balanced beer. Only pure barley malt is good enough for our beer.
Our beers are characterized by a robust head of foam that protects the flavor. This distinctive foam is created, in part, by our carefully selected barley malts. A prime example is Munich malt, which we specifically use to achieve the natural foam head that makes the beer experience complete.
The perfect balance between barley malt and hops results in our full-flavored, fresh, and slightly quirky beer. This balance allows us to exceed standards in both quality and taste.
The finest hops
For one and a half centuries, Alfa Beer has relied on one exceptional, traditional hop variety: Tettnanger hops. This refined variety from Tettnang in Germany is internationally renowned for its extraordinary quality. It’s the world-famous Tettnanger aroma hop that gives our beers their characteristic, subtle flavor—just as it did during the days of our founder, Joseph Meens.
What makes our beers even more special is the secret blend of other carefully selected aroma hops we use, adding further complexity and a fresh twist to the flavor. This combination of the best hop varieties creates the refined, fresh-fruity, and perfectly balanced taste that has characterized our beers for generations. Our long-standing loyalty to this hop blend is no coincidence. It’s a deliberate choice that reflects our commitment to consistent quality—because at Alfa Beer, we firmly believe that only the very best is good enough for our beers.
Meens yeast – the soul of our beer
We carefully protect all our ingredients. Our original Meens yeast strain is safely stored in a vault in Cologne. Regularly, we travel there to start again with fresh yeast, ensuring the consistent quality and unique character of our beers. Everything we do is focused on achieving the perfect taste.
Yeast defines the soul of every beer, giving it a unique character. Our Meens yeast strain, used for generations, provides subtle and refined aromas. This yeast profile is used for our bottom-fermented beers, which ferment slowly at lower temperatures. This careful, slow fermentation creates beers with intriguing and sophisticated profiles.
During fermentation, natural esters and aromas develop, resulting in a beautiful balance between gentle maltiness and subtle freshness. This gives our beers a delightful taste and a distinctive combination of aromas—full-flavored yet highly drinkable. This unique aromatic combination ensures our beers retain their distinctive character while remaining surprisingly easy to enjoy.
