Uden cherry beer

Uden has long been known as the cherry village. A hundred years ago, thousands of cherry trees surrounded the center of Uden, and the post-war cherry festivals attracted large crowds. In the 1960s, the orchards and cherry trade disappeared — but the love for cherries remained. Today, a mural of the iconic scarecrow Peerke Verschiet welcomes visitors to the apartment district. On Patrijsweg, a traditional tall-stem orchard has been planted by the Udense Kersenboomgaarden Foundation. And cherry lovers can enjoy a refreshing and fruity Uden cherry beer.

The cherry farmer
The cherries for this regional beer are supplied by Twan van den Berg of D’n Kersepluk. Since 2007, he has cultivated more than twenty cherry varieties in his low-stem orchard on Torenweg. These include nostalgic local varieties like the Udense Zwarte (dark, sweet cherries) and Udense Spaanse (yellow cherries with a red blush). Twan explains: "Our trees are much shorter than the old orchards used to have. That makes harvesting a lot less labor-intensive. My father-in-law used to climb eight-meter ladders to pick cherries. It took him an entire day to harvest 100 kilos. Now we do that in just a few hours."

Delights from the orchard
At D’n Kersepluk, strict quality selection is applied. The 'second choice' cherries are used by Twan to make all kinds of treats, such as juice and jam. He also added cherry beer to the range, in collaboration with Uden-based brewer Jan Martens. Twan is proud of the result: "It turned out to be a real beer — beautifully red in color, fresh and fruity in taste. Not overly sweet, I always emphasize that. During brewing, the sugar from the cherries is partly converted into alcohol. It's pure cherry beer, with no added flavorings. I'm also working on a white beer made with juice from the Udense Spaanse. That one gives the cherry taste without the red color."

Cherry beer for the cherry festival
Twan didn’t randomly approach Jan Martens when he wanted to make Uden’s cherry beer. Jan brewed his first cherry beer back in the early 1990s, for the revival of the Uden cherry festivals. The brewer recalls: "After the festival, the remaining bottles flew off the shelves at Wijnhuis. That convinced me to officially start my own brewery: Jantjes Bieren. We first set up in Burgemeester Buskensstraat, and later moved to Volkel. At the time, there were only about ten of these kinds of breweries in the Netherlands. Today, there are hundreds."

Want to read more about Uden's cherry history? Visit: https://www.udenarchief.nl/kersencultuur.