Beer in Warsaw

It’s not that I don’t like watching sports; cricket, rugby, American football, motor racing, all are regularly enjoyed. But soccer leaves me tepid at best, and anything involving UEFA or FIFA really sticks in my throat; so the worst times are the weeks when the whole country goes football crazy: the world cup and the ‘Euro’ Championship. And gone are the days when you could avoid games by simply going to the pub: now everywhere has to show the games. Well, while they’ve drawn my ire by showing the games, at least Cześć are still serving some excellent beers. Opening the evening’s account was a brand new beer from a brand new brewery: Chorągiew Rodowa , a rice IPA from Browar Łancut which premiered on 18 June. The name translates as ‘Ancestral banner’, which is an odd name to give to what’s quite a new beer style and one which features a key ingredient that’s never been grown in Poland. Chorągiew Rodowa rice IPA Anyway, the pint was a bright gold yellow, with very delicate bu...

Not so long ago, the Wisła banks were best avoided on summer evenings, unless your idea of fun is cans of warm Zywiec and a punch-up. However, over the last couple of years a range of seasonal bars have opened and deck-chairs have had their usual civilising effect. But, if you’ve got a taste for good beer, are there any good choices? Walking down from the pl Zamkowy and turning left onto the promenade, the first place you come to is ZygZak . It’s a steel structure with less than comfortable stools lining both sides of the long bar and a second floor over the bar area with stairs you can walk up to discover the staff haven’t bothered putting any seats up there. ZygZak: OK, I could have seen the lack of seating up there   There are four taps, all of which should serve beer from the Maryensztadt brewery, including some which are found only here and the bar next door. But at five o’clock on a Saturday afternoon only two of the four taps were hooked up, so the choice was betw...

Beer in Poland has come a long way in a few short years. At the start of 2012, I would literally cross Warsaw just to drink draught Perła; now Perła is the minimum quality I'll think about drinking (anything worse and I’ll just have water thanks). Everything changed at ‎half past nine on 31 ‎August ‎2012 with my first bottle of Rowing Jack in Setka in Poznan. Welcome to the Polish beer revolution. But even then Warsaw had zero multi-tap bars and wouldn’t get any until the middle of the next year. Fast forward to today and there are 42 multi-tap bars listed for Warsaw on ontap.pl (and at least six that aren’t). Astoundingly, there were 1,164 new beers launched in Poland in 2015, including 238 IPAs and 257 other ales. 57 new breweries debuted in 2015 and there were 13 new beer festivals. And this year is shaping up to be even bigger! But there’s still very little being written about the Polish beer revolution in any language other than Polish, which means it’s hard for people...