Shipping to 30+ countries

Shipping

Hoptimaal offers a wide variety of beers both in-store and online. If you can place an order, we usually have the product in stock (though mistakes can happen, unfortunately). Products that are in stock will be shipped the same day if ordered before 3:00 PM.

If we make an error with stock levels, you will be notified within 24 hours. In that email, we will offer you an alternative product, the right to a full refund, and a new delivery time. It's up to you how you'd like us to resolve the issue.

We entrust our shipments to DPD and offer the following delivery options within the Netherlands:

  • Home delivery or delivery to your work
  • Pickup location

Shipping Costs by Country

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Country Shipping Cost Shipping Cost Above €150 Free Shipping from
Netherlands €7.95 €0 €75
Belgium €8.95 €0 €100
Bosnia and Herzegovina €47.50 €25 Never
Bulgaria €47.50 €25 Never
Denmark €15.95 €0 €150
Germany €12.50 €0 €100
Estonia €17.50 €0 €150
Finland €21.95 €10 €200
France €16.95 €0 €150
Greece €29.50 €15 Never
Hungary €21.95 €10 €200
Ireland €15.95 €0 €150
Italy €16.95 €0

€150
Croatia €47.50 €25,- Never
Latvia €17.50 €0 €150
Luxembourg €12.95 €0 €150
Norway* Coming soon
Austria €15.95 €0 €150
Poland €15.95 €0 €150
Portugal €19.95 €10 €200
Romania €27.50 €10 Never
Spain €18.75 €0 €150
Czech Republic €15.95 €0 €150
Sweden €22.95 €10 €200

Delivery

DPD generally delivers within 2-5 business days of receiving the package. You can track your order using the tracking information we send, so you can see exactly where your package is. DPD will also give you a time window of 2 to 4 hours for delivery. Not at home? No problem! You can choose whether you want them to deliver again the next day or leave it at the nearest post office.

Have a question about your beer delivery? Feel free to contact us: info@hoptimaal.nl | 085 -130 1591

Returns

You have a 14-day cooling-off period after receiving your product. Within this period, you can request a return. The email you received when your order was shipped contains a link to easily download and print a return label. After registering your return, you have another 14 days to send the product back. If you've purchased multiple items at once, the return period begins after receiving your last item.

How to return or exchange a product:

  • Fill out the return form within 14 days of receiving the product. If you're unable to print the return form, at least include your order number and name on a piece of paper and include it in your return.
  • Register your return with our customer service by emailing info@hoptimaal.nl or calling 085 -130 1591.
  • After registering your return, you have 14 more days to send the product back.
  • Send your return in its original condition and packaging. Products that are damaged or incomplete will not be eligible for exchange or
Order before 3:00 PM on weekdays, shipped today.
Break-proof packaging

Your beers are always carefully packaged. If there is any damage during transit, we offer a guarantee. Not satisfied, money back.
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Beer School

Mead

Mead is not beer, but a fermented drink made mainly of honey, water and yeast. It can be dry, medium-sweet or sweet, and still, lightly sparkling or sparkling.

  • Alcoholhydromel 3.5–7.5%, standard 7.5–14%, sack 14–18% (BJCP)
  • Entry levelFor the adventurous

What is it?

Under the Dutch rules, only a drink from fermented wort of which at least 60% of the extract comes from barley or wheat malt may be called 'bier' (beer) (Warenwetbesluit Gereserveerde aanduidingen, art. 7b). Mead is all about honey, and the BJCP therefore has separate guidelines for it. The type of honey helps determine how a mead smells and looks; most mead is straw-yellow to gold.

Mead is described along three axes: - Sweetness: dry, medium-sweet or sweet. - Carbonation: still, lightly sparkling (petillant) or sparkling. - Strength: hydromel, standard or sack.

Sweetness is separate from strength: a strong mead can be dry and a light mead sweet. Dry mead shows the floral, fruity and spicy aromas of the honey without the sweetness of raw honey, and in balance resembles dry white wine. Sweet mead resembles a dessert wine such as ice wine.

Variants according to the BJCP: - Melomel: with fruit, such as cyser (apple or other pome fruit) and pyment (grapes). - Metheglin: with herbs or spices. - Braggot: with malt or beer, but still recognisably mead.

Myth or fact?

Myth

‘Mead is a kind of beer.’

Mead is fermented honey, with water and yeast. Beer is made from wort from (mainly) malt, so mead is not beer.

Myth

‘Mead is a kind of beer.’

Mead is made mainly from honey, water and yeast. The BJCP therefore has separate guidelines for it, apart from the beer guidelines.

Under the Dutch rules, too, mead is not beer. There, only a drink that arises from fermentation of wort, in which at least 60% of the extract comes from barley or wheat malt, may be called 'bier' (beer) (Warenwetbesluit Gereserveerde aanduidingen, art. 7b). Mead made from honey, water and yeast does not meet that.

There is an in-between form, though: braggot, mead made with malt or beer. The BJCP counts that as mead too, as long as the mead remains recognisable and it is not just a 'honey beer'. The BJCP does not prescribe a fixed ratio between honey and beer.

Mead is therefore a category of its own, just like cider.

Sources

Myth

‘Mead is always sweet.’

Mead comes in dry, medium-sweet and sweet. Dry mead has little to no residual sugar and resembles dry white wine.

Myth

‘Mead is always sweet.’

Honey is sweet, but during fermentation yeasts convert the sugars into alcohol. How much sweetness remains is the maker's choice.

The BJCP therefore divides traditional mead by sweetness. Dry mead has little to no residual sugar. It shows the floral, fruity and spicy aromas of the honey without the sweetness of raw honey, and in balance and body resembles dry white wine. In addition there are medium-sweet and sweet meads; sweet mead resembles a dessert wine such as ice wine.

Sweetness is also separate from strength: a strong mead can be dry and a light mead sweet.

Moreover, the BJCP calls a raw, unfermented honey sweetness in sweet mead in fact a common fault.

Sources

Partly true

‘Mead is the oldest alcoholic drink in the world.’

Honey was in one of the earliest demonstrated fermented drinks (China, seventh millennium BC), but that was a mixed drink with rice and fruit. That mead is the oldest drink has not been proven.

Partly true

‘Mead is the oldest alcoholic drink in the world.’

The chemical evidence does not point to pure mead as the oldest drink.

The well-known study of pottery from the Neolithic village of Jiahu, in the Chinese province of Henan, found residues of a mixed fermented drink of rice, honey and fruit (hawthorn fruit and/or grape). Those residues date from the seventh millennium BC.

Honey therefore does belong to the oldest fermented drinks that have been demonstrated. But that mead is 'the oldest alcoholic drink' has not been demonstrated with this evidence: it was a mixture, not fermented honey with water.

What is established: honey was already being fermented in prehistory.

Sources

Where does it come from?

Honey has been fermented for a very long time. Chemical analysis of pottery from the Neolithic village of Jiahu, in the Chinese province of Henan, found residues of a fermented drink of rice, honey and fruit (hawthorn fruit and/or grape) from the seventh millennium BC.

That was a mixed drink, not pure mead. That mead is 'the oldest alcoholic drink in the world' is often claimed, but has not been demonstrated with this evidence.

Nowadays the BJCP describes mead in guidelines of its own (the Mead Style Guidelines of 2026), separate from beer and cider.

Taste it yourself

Puhaste Melpomene - Bourbon BA (Silver Series)Puhaste Melpomene - Bourbon BA (Silver Series)honey, vanilla, caramel, wood, heavy€9,95 Brewlihan Serum: Boysenberry PeanutBrewlihan Serum: Boysenberry Peanutsweet, blackberries, peanut, light€13,95 De Mederie Double Black RiverDe Mederie Double Black Riversweet, blackcurrant, honey, heavy€42,95
All Mead in the shop
Did you like this? Then try Barleywine →

Similar to: Cider

Terms

Yeast
The micro-organism that during fermentation converts the sugars from the malt into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Malt
Grain, usually barley but for example also wheat, that has been steeped, germinated and dried so that sugars become available for the yeast; the more strongly the malt is roasted, the darker the beer.
Wort
The sweet sugar solution that arises from malt and water, is then boiled with hops and only becomes beer through fermentation.
Dry (highly attenuated)
A beer that feels little sweet, because the yeast has converted most of the sugars.
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