Walk-in only. The beer list runs to roughly 120 bottles and taps, so ask the bar where to start.
Café de Spuyt sits at Korte Leidsedwarsstraat 86, a short walk off Leidseplein in central Amsterdam. It has poured since 1968, when Luc Wildschut opened it as a neighbourhood bar. In Your Pocket describes it as a snug brown cafe that has held its warmth for more than fifty years.
The draw is the range. Roughly 120 beers run across bottle and draft, weighted toward Belgian classics with local and international bottles filling the gaps. This is a beer bar first, a late one, and a small one.
The room
The room is narrow and low-lit, the standard Amsterdam brown bar in plan: dark wood, a candle on each table, regulars at the counter. It seats a small crowd and fills fast at the weekend. Beer Guide Amsterdam lists it among the city's long-running specialist beer cafes, which is the company it keeps rather than the tourist bars a block over on Leidseplein.
The size is the point. When it is full it runs loud and close, with standing room at the bar and a queue for tables. When it is quiet it is one of the better places in the centre to read a beer list slowly. The street outside has churned through five decades of openings and closings, and de Spuyt has outlasted most of it on the strength of the cellar.
The beer list
The strength sits in the bottles. Trappist and abbey ales carry the menu, with a rotating set of taps that the staff change often. The list is long enough that browsing it cold wastes time, so the right move is to name a style and let the bar steer. Belgian quadrupels, saisons, and sour reds all turn up, alongside Dutch craft from local brewers. The bottle menu rewards a second visit, since few drinkers clear more than a sliver of it in one sitting. Regulars work it in seasons, leaning dark in winter and lighter through the summer.
What to order
Start Belgian. A Trappist on the heavier end suits the room on a cold night, and the staff will match a lighter saison or pale ale if that is the brief. Prices sit in the moderate band for central Amsterdam, with most pours in the 5 to 8 euro range and stronger bottles above that. Two beers and a seat keeps the night cheap by Leidseplein standards.
Who it is for
It is for drinkers who came for the beer and not the scene. It works as a slow weeknight, a first stop before a show near Leidseplein, or a late one after. Skip it if you want cocktails or a large group table; this is a beer bar built for two or three. For more of the genre, see Amsterdam's craft beer bars and the global craft beer guide.
The crowd
The crowd leans local, older on quiet nights and younger past 10pm. Expats and beer travellers find it, but it has not tipped into a tourist room the way much of the Leidseplein strip has. It reads as a working neighbourhood bar that happens to keep one of the deeper beer lists in the centre.
Best time to go
It opens at 4pm daily and runs late, to 3am most nights and 4am on Friday and Saturday. Early evening is calm and the best window for the beer list. Weekends after 10pm turn to standing room. For more of the city, start with our Amsterdam bar guide and the best craft beer bars in Amsterdam.
Sources: In Your Pocket Amsterdam; Beer Guide Amsterdam; Yelp reviews; Foursquare; Leidsebuurt Amsterdam (2026).
