Verstappen, Foosball and the End of the Heineken Tour

I support Mercedes. I mention this because the last stretch of the Heineken Experience in Amsterdam is essentially a shrine to a Red Bull driver, and I walked into it as a woman with the wrong allegiance, in a country where that allegiance is close to a minority position.

I had a very good time anyway. These are the rooms at the end, after the copper kettles and the history and the bottling line. They are dark, loud, covered in branding, and full of things to look at and play with. Nobody is being taught anything here. It is the part of the tour designed to send visitors out cheerful, and it works.

The Heineken Experience Final Rooms at a Glance
🏎️ The Verstappen case · A lit case with Max Verstappen’s 2024 Red Bull race suit, helmet and a signed cap. The most photographed object in the finale.
🏆 F1 memorabilia · Grand Prix posters, two used Pirelli tyres, and green trophies, the oldest from Monza 2016, Heineken’s first title-sponsored race.
⚽ A foosball pitch · A room dressed as a floodlit stadium, plus a branded dugout with real seats to rest tired legs.
🚫 The 0.0 argument · A green “When You Drive, Never Drink” wall that reveals the whole finale as one alcohol-free sponsorship case.
💡 Tip · Budget half an hour after the historic rooms; take the free-drink token even if you don’t drink (the 0.0 pour counts).

The Case

The first thing in the room is a lit glass case with a racing suit hanging in it.

It belongs to Max Verstappen, and the label dates it to his 2024 season with Oracle Red Bull Racing. Beside it hangs his 2024 driver helmet, red and blue and white with a lion on the crown, and below that a signed cap. The case is edged in green light, with MV and the number 1 across the top, and a Heineken 0.0 logo in the corner.

Verstappen is Dutch, and the phrase I would use is the pride and joy of the nation. He won four consecutive world championships between 2021 and 2024, the first Dutch driver ever to take the title. The case is the single most photographed object in these rooms and I understood why while I was queueing to photograph it.

Posters, and Two Tyres on the Floor

Behind the case, a wall carries Grand Prix posters, one for each race Heineken has put its name to. Las Vegas. Canada, with five red maple leaves. Australia in yellow. China in red and gold. Portugal at Portimão. Italy. Mexico. Beside several of them run the years, stacked in a column: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021.

On the floor, two Formula 1 tyres sit at angles, Pirelli in white on the sidewalls, silver rims, and a yellow 0.0 sticker on each hub. They are much wider than they look on television and much lower, and the rubber is scuffed grey rather than glossy black.

The Trophy Case

Round the corner is a glass cabinet holding four green trophies, tall and twisted like flames, with a white one behind them signed by Verstappen.

The labels beneath give the races. First place, Monza, 2016. First place, Monza, 2019. Second place, São Paulo, 2019. And a fourth, marked as an artist edition, also from São Paulo in 2019, etched with drawings down its length rather than polished plain.

The 2016 Monza trophy is the one worth pausing at, and I did not know why until afterwards. Heineken announced its Formula 1 partnership that year, and Monza in September 2016 was the first Grand Prix it title-sponsored. The oldest trophy in the case is from the first race the company put its name on.

The Wall That Explains the Whole Thing

Then comes a green wall, and it is the moment the room stops being memorabilia and starts being an argument.

It is printed with two things, over and over. Heineken 0.0, the alcohol-free version. And a red circle with a bottle and a steering wheel struck through, reading “When You Drive, Never Drink”. A Formula 1 logo and a Heineken 0.0 logo sit together at the centre. In front of it stands a podium, three low green cylinders numbered one, two and three, and beyond that a racing simulator with people queueing at it.

A brewer sponsoring motorsport has an obvious problem, and this wall is the answer to it. The campaign launched in September 2016, at the same moment as the Formula 1 partnership, and the product that carries it is the one with nothing in it. The 0.0 branding on the tyres, on the case, on the wall, is not decoration. It is the entire licence to be there.

The Football Room

The next room is a football pitch, or a very good impression of one. Artificial turf underfoot, walls printed with stands full of blurred spectators, and advertising hoardings running round the edge with the red star on them.

A foosball table stands in the middle. I did not play. I watched two people play instead, one in a red cap, and they were laughing at each other in the way that people do when neither of them is any good and both of them have decided to commit anyway. It was the most relaxed thing I saw all afternoon.

Along one side sits a dugout with real seats, each headrest branded, and a man was sitting in it on his own, watching the room the way a substitute watches a match. There is a screen and a small game at the far end, and an exit sign past that.

The Bar, and the Token

The tour ends underground, at the Best ‘Dam Bar, and this is where the token comes in.

The VIP tour gives one token per person for a free drink. Mine posed a small problem, since I do not drink beer. I also do not like waste. So I handed over the token, took the alcohol-free one, and had a few sips of it standing at a bar under a ceiling of exposed pipes, surrounded by people who had clearly enjoyed their afternoon.

The room is low and dark and green, with bottles ranked in rows along one wall and a living wall of plants behind the taps. A stand near the entrance is headed Glass Collector, asking anyone who has finished to leave their glass there, with empty crates stacked beneath it to take them. Staff in green were working steadily. Nobody was in a hurry to leave.

Bubbly Tips

• Leave time for these rooms. People treat them as the walk to the exit. Budget half an hour after the historic sections or you will find yourself hurrying past the best interactive parts of the building.
• Take the token even if you do not drink. The alcohol-free option is available and staff will pour it without comment. There is no rule that says the free drink has to be the alcoholic one.
• Photograph the Verstappen case from the side. Straight on, the glass throws back the green light strips and the red wall behind you. Standing at an angle gets you the suit and the helmet without the reflection.
• Look at the years next to the posters. They tell you which Grands Prix Heineken has title-sponsored and for how long, which is more informative than the posters themselves.
• Read the trophy labels. The oldest one is from Monza in 2016 and marks the first race the company sponsored under its own name. Without the label it is just a green trophy among green trophies.
• The foosball table gets busy. If you want a game rather than a photograph, go through to the football room before the group behind you catches up.
• Sit in the dugout. It is real seating, it is comfortable, and after two hours of standing on concrete it is the most welcome object in the building.
• The bar has limited seating. It is designed for standing, so if you want to sit down with your drink, the rooftop is the better bet if your ticket includes it.
• Go on a weekday if you can. These rooms depend on other people enjoying themselves to work at all, but a full tour group in the racing room turns it into a queue.

Final Thoughts

I expected the end of this tour to be a gift shop with extra steps. It is more interesting than that. Once the 0.0 logo becomes visible on the tyre hubs, on the driver’s case, on the wall behind the podium, the whole sequence reads as one continuous argument that a brewer can sponsor motorsport responsibly, made in green neon at the end of a long afternoon.

And it is fun, which is the harder thing to engineer. I stood in a room built to celebrate a driver I do not support, in front of a trophy case belonging to a company whose main product I do not drink, and I still came out cheerful. Whoever designed these rooms knew exactly what they were doing.

Until next time!

xoxo,
Bubbly 🎈