Beer in Warsaw

With hindsight, even the sign should have told us to give this place a swerve: beer & whiskey Are the kind of people in Poland who drink good whiskey in bars the same kind of people who drink craft beer? I’d have thought not, so is a bar likely to serve good whisky and craft beer or bad whiskey and bad beer?  Not everything about Prohibition was bad But Prohibicja is listed on ontap.pl as having a dozen taps, and is located literally next door to Kontynuacja, so we thought ‘Why not’. Walking in it felt like somewhere that wants to be a fashionable cocktail bar but with a crowd that are about a decade younger than you’d find in a fashionable cocktail bar. The menu was even stranger, mine said they had Zywiec on tap and the range of Zywiec’s ‘ale’ drinks in bottles. Personally I think I’d rather drink fermented tramp’s piss than Zywiec, but I do understand that some people do like the stuff; I just didn’t think that those people went to multi-tap bars. Fortunately the M...

Sessions in Kontynuacja have always been right up in the highlights of previous trips to Wrocław, it’s a cracking bar and home to some vastly drinkable beers. The surprise during this month’s visits was the way that the beer list has changed: in the past there were four or five beers, priced in the twenties or thirties, from international big-name breweries, the likes of Four Pure, Anchor and The Kernel. But this time there were only two imported beers and the most expensive option was 20zl (which was a Polish-German Grodziskie/Lichtenhainer hybrid and so was given a swerve). Not that there’s anything wrong with Polish beer, I’m a huge fan of the stuff, but it’s always nice to at least have the option of trying something from a brewery with an awesome reputation that you didn’t really expect to find on tap in Poland. Is it a bit strange that a bar with 23 taps can’t find room for even one such beer? Towards the end of the visit, they were all finished, eventually First up was a n...

It is a bit of a trek from  Wrocław  city centre, some four kilometres from the Rynek, but Uber gets you there for the price of a pint on the Rynek, or you could get a tram some ten stops. But frankly even walking would be well worth the effort: this place is utterly awesome.  Although the space of the brewery is pretty vast, the bar area itself is not the biggest of venues, so it’s a good idea to call ahead on busy nights to book a table. On a summer Sunday we had no problem getting a seat, but on a Friday night during winter (when the outdoor tables half of the customers favour aren’t available) might well be a different story.  WRCLW Roggenbier: excellent We kicked things off with a Salamander Wheat Porter, a WRCLW Roggenbier and a Salamander Pale Ale. The Wheat Porter was very much worth ordering. Not the most intense of aromas, but still interesting, roasted malts with chocolate and hickory coffee. The creamy smooth medium mouth had low carbon...

Jet Black Heart: by far the best thing about Brewdog Warszawa Where to start with Brewdog? Well, they do make some excellent beers. And they do also sometimes make me laugh, for example their Sink the Bismark: 41% and 1941 being the year the Bismark was sunk. But they also annoy more than a few people, sometimes amusingly, such as the cretins at the Portman Group, and sometimes not, such as when they mocked homeless people and sex workers while they crowd-sourced funding. The runners and riders nicely displayed There are also the tiresome PR stunts: driving a tank down Camden High Street. Dropping stuffed cats on the City of London from a helicopter. Selling beer cased in stuffed animals. Smashing bottles of macro-lagers with a golf club. Refusing to sell Camden Town beers after the brewery was bought by beer giant AB InBev. All utterly pointless from the perspective of beer. And then there’s the insufferable brandwank. Ranting about the big beer corporations and abo...

It’s always good to have a ,mid-week surprise, especially when it involves beer. Tuesday night was supposed to be a straight home night, but the route back to IPIP towers from the coal-face goes dangerously close to Cześć , so close that a strongish gust of an ill wind can blow a weary traveler through the door and right up to the bar…. Black Wind Fortunately the wind inside Cześć that night was very favourable: Black Wind , an oatmeal stout from Pracownia Piwa and Jabeerwocky brewed with citrus zest. At first it’s just another oatmeal stout on the nose: dark chocolate, roasted malt and hints of chicory coffee, but then you get surprising grapefruit notes. It’s a bit like a Terry’s Dark Chocolate Grapefruit, if Terry’s were to make such a thing. On the mouth it’s initially very much a classic milk stout, with a very good mouthfeel for a Polish stout (I'd love to try this from a hand-pump), but then orange and grapefruit flavours arrive quite unexpectedly, giving it a very r...

Despite the renaissance in beer in Poland, both places brewing it and places serving it, the places selling good stuff to drink at home haven’t kept pace. The number of shops selling alcohol has actually gone down significantly over recent years – apparently fewer points of sale is the best way to ensure there are fewer drunks stumbling around, or at least you might think that if you’re a blithering moron like cretins in city hall. It’s bad enough if all you want is crappy macro-lager; if you’re looking for craft beer, especially higher-end stuff, it can be a bit of a nightmare. That’s why a bacon sandwich was very nearly dropped when this place appeared on Facebook with photos of shelves loaded with stunners from the likes of Mikkeller, To Øl, Stones  and Moor beer, especially as it’s only a short stagger from IPIP Towers. What heaven would look like if heaven sold beer (and was limited to being on Jana Pawla) A lightning fast stroll up Jan Pawła revealed a sight even be...