There is a small QR code on the label of every PopHop beer. Scan it, and you won't end up on a website, but at a Spotify playlist. At this Rotterdam brewery, it is always about two things: music and beer.

From hobby project to store fixture

Peter and Piér started PopHop in 2019, driven by two loves: pop music and craft beer. Their first brew was called Baggy Trousers, named after the Madness song, and was, by their own account, cloudy but flavorful. After that, things moved fast. PopHop now brews new beers monthly, and what started as a hobby has grown into a serious player with what they call their greatest hits, distributed throughout the Netherlands. At PopHop, it is all about experimentation and taste, not efficiency. You can taste that in every beer they make.

Start light: White Wedding and Boogie Blond

If you want to get acquainted with PopHop, start with the lighter side of their range. White Wedding The brewery itself calls it an arranged marriage: German wheat meets American dry hopping, with lemon, mandarin, and banana in the glass. Boogie Blond takes a different direction, with banana and pear on the nose and a spicy, slightly bitter finish. Both are fresh enough for a first acquaintance, with just enough character to make you want to taste more.

Deeper and darker: Club Tropicana, Killer Queen and Painted Black

If you're ready for more kick, it's time for the sturdier beers. Club Tropicana is a double dry-hopped double IPA, cloudy and full of tropical fruit, with a bitterness that hits hard. Killer Queen matured for over nine months in a Caol Ila whisky cask and acquired smoky, peaty notes from it, with cardamom and dried fruit underneath. And then there is Painted Black, a stout that aged for five weeks on oak chips with Scotch whisky and therefore tastes like dark roasted coffee with a hint of whisky in the finish.

Cyberjazz, the final piece

The beer that perhaps best summarizes PopHop's experiment is Cyberjazz. For this quadrupel, vanilla pods were first soaked in Frisian vodka for a while before entering the brew. The result is a deep dark brown beer with notes of warm caramel, spices, and soft vanilla, surprisingly smooth for a beer of this caliber. This is exactly how PopHop likes to sound: soft as jazz, sharp as cyber.

From light to leaden, at Pop Hop There's a song to go with everything. Curious which of their beers best suits your playlist? Check out their entire range on the brand page.