vandeStreek Alcohol-Free Beers

vandeStreek: the Dutch brothers who made alcohol-free craft cool

vandeStreek bier is the Utrecht brewery of brothers Sander and Ronald van de Streek, who started homebrewing in a flat around 2009–2010, incorporated as contract brewers in 2013, and — after a successful crowdfunding round — opened their own Utrecht brewery in 2017. That same year they made Dutch beer history: Playground was the first alcohol-free IPA from a Dutch craft brewery, developed with know-how from German brewing colleagues.

What makes Playground significant is how it’s made: rather than brewing strong and stripping the alcohol out, vandeStreek uses a special yeast that barely converts sugar to alcohol, with body-building malts and generous American hops. Nothing is removed — only added. The result became one of the most decorated alcohol-free IPAs anywhere, and AF beer has grown into a major share of what the brewery does, alongside a sustainability-minded operation (recyclable cans, reduced water use).

The accolades back the method up: Playground took a silver medal at the Barcelona Beer Challenge and won a national tasting held by De Volkskrant, and it remains one of the most-reviewed alcohol-free IPAs on Untappd with tens of thousands of check-ins. Not bad for a beer that began as a one-off experiment when the brothers wondered why nobody was using American hops in low-alcohol beer.

Alcohol-free is no novelty line for the brothers, either — it has grown into a substantial share of everything the brewery makes, with siblings like Fun House and a grapefruit edition extending the Playground family.

vandeStreek’s alcohol-free range on Unhopped

We list the famous Playground IPA plus Fun House NEIPA and Bumper Blond — three sides of the brothers’ playful, hop-forward house style. They’re fixtures of our Dutch alcohol-free beer guide.