Riet recensent
"Riet reviewer", since last week within no time a household name in the Tilburg student life. Floris plays the leading role in this channel and is also the administrator of the relevant Instagram account. On the short videos that he frequently posts on the channel, you can see him give his unvarnished opinion on various special beers, after he 'reedsadt' them.
Floris is 21 years old, student Public Governance at Tilburg University and active member of student association Olof and fraternity R.A.F. He is also active within SAM, where he is chairman of the internal activities committee. We talked to Floris about the origin of this special 'hobby'. And oh yes, don't try this at home!
A question for the laymen among us, but could you explain what rietadten is?
"Forgive me for not being a physicist, but I will try to explain it as well as I can. When you put a straw in a bottle of beer, the straw that goes into the bottom of the bottle makes sure that the air pressure remains the same in the bottle. This causes the beer to be pushed down when you hold the bottle upside down, with the result that you can 'empty' such a bottle a lot faster than normal."
Where did you get the idea to do this?
"On Wednesday we always have debating society evening. Then all the men of the house are present and we first have a drink and then a bite to eat. One of the men present was talking about the fact that the NRC had just published its top 100 supermarket wines, pictured in a guide with several reviews. Then one of the guys present joked whether they were also a bit 'cane', referring to the cane diet. Another friend of mine laughed at that and said he thought it was a job for me.
I thought about it and I thought that making a channel that only advertises bottles of wine was a bit heavy-handed, so I ended up making a special beer channel, where I review special beers in terms of how caneable they are. It was actually born out of this joke.
I recorded some videos on that first evening and the following day I saw on my Instagram account that it was catching on. Then I thought to myself: now that I've said A, I must also say B."
What do you understand under the term 'rietbaarheid'?
"Casting ability has to do with how quickly, but also how comfortable it is to 'straw pipe' such a beer (= drink your bottle in one gulp). That depends for example on how much carbon dioxide is in such a bottle, because the more carbon dioxide there is, the more foam there is, which makes it more annoying to empty the beer. I personally don't like bitterness either, but that has more to do with taste. Actually, carbonation is the most important thing, which is the thing that does the least to improve the pourability."
Your Instagram channel completely exploded in just one day. Did you get many reactions to that?
"Yes, an awful lot! The other day, someone came to stay and the boy recognised me from my channel, which was just a few days old at the time. So that's how far it goes."
Are there any negative reactions among them?
"Well, the first evening I poured a bottle of wine. I got more concerned reactions about that, not necessarily negative ones. Some people wonder if this is a good idea for my own health, but I know that myself. I've been uploading a lot of content recently and I'm going to limit that a bit in the near future to keep it healthier and more manageable for myself."
How long do you think this will last?
"That depends. I recently stopped doing the daily uploads, because at a certain point that's no longer feasible. When the exam period comes around, it will be quiet for a while anyway, and when the world finally opens up a bit more, I'll have better things to do than sit behind the house bar and review rietadts. But we'll see, I'm curious how long I'll be able to keep this up, haha!"
Is this behavior also caused by the fact that you cannot do much at the moment?
"I think so, because it probably wouldn't have happened so quickly if I could have gone into the Polly Maggoo on Wednesday night. Then, of course, I would have done something else. It wasn't born out of boredom, but it went on out of boredom, if you know what I mean!"
Do you have a list of beers you check off?
"No, I don't have one. People can make requests via my Instagram account. For example, I received a random request from a rowing club in Utrecht to drink a Klok beer at room temperature, so I'm going to do that sometime this week, although I'm not really looking forward to it. And if I don't get any more requests, I will go to the supermarket myself. But I still love requests!"
Wat zijn je favoriete biertjes tot nu toe?
"Good question. Basically, I can answer this question in two ways. On the one hand, I have favourite beers that originate from reviewing, but that's a different question than my favourite to ad. I have to say that the small Schrobbelèr variant was less difficult for me than expected. Many people had requested this 'little number'. At the beginning of the Carnival holiday, I had put a message in my story with the question: "Which drink should you absolutely not miss during this Carnival?". I received the answer Schrobbelèr very often. Despite the fact that I was dreading it, it wasn't that bad. A gin and tonic that was requested was also fine by me. But, the beer that I find fine to 'cane' is not related to which film I find most amusing or funny."
How do you drink such a 'rietbak' in the best possible way?
"You have to point your beer straight up in the air in one go. I often see people holding their beer at an angle, which is not ideal and makes it a lot slower. Just hold it straight in the air and drink as if your life depended on it. I can't open my throat myself, so you don't need to be able to do that. Practice makes perfect!"