Amsterdam calls time on beer bikes

Bad news for pedaller-revellers thinking of paying a visit to Amsterdam – the city has called time on its beer bikes. You’ll have to go to Wisconsin now.

Beer bikes – known locally as bierfiets – are mobile bar tables that are pedalled along by multiple drinkers. As you might imagine, they can be fairly rowdy and very slow moving.

According to NL Times, they aren’t especially popular with locals. People who signed a 2015 petition against them complained about having beer thrown on them, being spat on and people urinating in the street.

Speaking to The Guardian, one local woman said: “Many tourists seem to see Amsterdam as a kind of theme park. The racket produced by a passing bierfiets is unbelievable.”

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From today, the beer bicycle is banned from Amsterdam city centre. There had been plans to introduce the ban at the start of the year but with most beer bike operators housing their vehicles centrally, this was deemed unfair and they were given time to cancel their garage leases.

Sebastiaan Meijer, the council’s spokesperson for economic affairs, explained that the city was becoming a little more discriminating when it came to the tourists it was looking to attract.

“For a long time our marketing policy was simply aimed at making people come to Amsterdam. Now we want to spread a new message: ‘come to Amsterdam, but please behave’.”