INFO
‘A.H. Heineken 40 Years at Heineken N.V.’
Special edition Vers van ‘t vat
1 June 1982
paper magazine
h 29.7 x w 20.8 cm
From typescript to Workplace
‘Fresh from the tap – that's the motto! Fresh from the tap – then it's fantastic!’ Director Henry Pierre Heineken opened his foreword for the new staff magazine in 1950 with these two lines from the revue of the same name – performed by the staff in 1948 for the 75th anniversary. A foreword full of metaphors, comparing the process of making the magazine to that of beer brewing.
Heineken identifies necessary high-quality ingredients as ‘journalistic integrity, dignity in the way one expresses thoughts, wit of a high standard, etc., etc.’ With these ingredients, ‘the taste of the “brewed” is already guaranteed.’
An upbeat magazine
The staff magazine Vers van ‘t vat was the officially printed successor to the H.B.M. Clubnieuws, which was typed, drawn, and stencilled by a group of enthusiastic Heineken employees between 1935 and 1945. According to an editorial from 1965, initially, Vers van ‘t Vat was an upbeat little magazine. Sections with cheerful titles like ‘Living in the Brewery’ brim with short staff announcements—a silver anniversary, a golden wedding anniversary, a VARA radio performance by the Heineken Men's Choir. Attention was also paid to history, as seen in the comic strip ‘Beer through the Ages’ or a story about the acquisition of De Sleutel (Key) Brewery in Dordrecht.
Together with Amstel
When Heineken merged with Amstel in 1968, Vers van ‘t Vat became a biweekly corporate staff magazine. Amstel's own Het Spongat—named after the tap opening in the beer barrel—ceased to exist. Since 1956, this magazine had been ‘a factor to strengthen Amstel Brewery’s “family life”.’
For wives
The fact that the editorial team of Het Spongat took this motto literally is evident from the special women's section. It bore the puzzling title: ‘When red is black, a woman keeps smiling’, maybe a reference to fate and the card game world. This woman deserved the section ‘simply because, as the wife of a man from Amstel and as the mother of his children, she has the right to know everything about the environment in which he works.’ This approach is certainly more informative than the women's section in Vers van ‘t Vat, where 'Heineken women' follow the correspondence between the sisters Agaatha and Amalia in Van vrouw tot vrouw (Woman to woman).
Women of Heineken and Amstel
Neither of the women's sections lasted very long, which makes sense considering the many female employees at Heineken in the 1950s, especially in the office and lab. The staff magazine soon began targeting all readers working at any of the Heineken locations.
In the end, in 2005, Vers van ‘t vat transformed into Heineken NL Magazine, which appeared in paper form until 2014. It continued briefly as a digital magazine under the name Tapp, but since 2017 employees have been reading their Heineken news in separate posts on Workplace. With this transition, an important historical source has disappeared – the preservation of digital media remains uncertain. Fortunately, browsing through older magazines is now easily accessible online, even for the public: https://heineken.memorix.nl/