We will we will Wrocław

On the Saturday evening of my weekend in Wrocław I left the festival to give the city proper a token once over. I was accompanied by Martyn Cornell who had joined an earlier pub crawl late on the Thursday and was keen to catch up on what he'd missed.

Our first stop was Pinta's local outlet, in a smart modern building on the periphery of the old town. Pinta has grown to become the establishment of Polish independent brewing, moving Boston-Beer-like from having no breweries to having two now. Their Atak Chiemlu IPA, which I'll admit to not being a fan of, is something of a national icon.

I didn't go hoppy on my visit; I went sour. Well, it's Poland: you know yourself. Kwas XY is flavoured with passionfruit and delivers loads of it: a big burst of tangy tropicality which still delights me about passionfruit beers, even though I've had dozens. I got an echo of Irish classic Castaway though it is sweeter, but it's just as bright and summery. I can forgive Poland's aversion to real sourness on this occasion.

Our next call was to 4Hops, a bicycle themepub not far away. From the crowd inside and outside, that's not just a fashion statement, it's where the two-wheel gang actually gathers to drink. What's on the menu? Nothing I recognise so, randomly, a Minister Na Targu by Browar Minister. I must have been in the mood for tropical fruit (it was sunny) because this is a mango and kiwifruit flavoured pale ale. It's a deep hazy orange colour and heavy and resinous, in the vernacular created by Atak Chiemlu back in the day. The fruit does throw a positive spin on this, balancing the bitterness with a sprinkling of Starburst chews. The sweetness never takes over and, at 4.9% ABV, it's quite relaxed drinking. Not a double-thumbs-up, but definitely a could-have-been-worse.

We arrived in the pretty main square next, on one corner of which is the rambling Złoty Pies ("Golden Dog") brewpub. They've gone all-in on the dog theme, with large-format dog prints on the wall, flat screens carouselling more doggy action pics, and a succession of dog puns in the beer names. I had a Bockser. I doubt it qualifies as a bock at just 4.5% ABV. It's more like a normal central European brewpub lager, yellow with a slight haze; tasting of wax and honey. Pleasant and easy going, it's a great conversation beer. I'd have stayed for more but Martyn had another place on his to-do list.

Which was closed. Rather than backtrack, we opted for the branch of the Bierhalle chain which occupies a large footprint on the square, including a beer garden where we set up camp. I'd been to a Bierhalle before, in Łódź: they go for a generic yet charming Germanic vibe. This one didn't have its A-game running though, being slow on service and missing all the seasonal beers. There's no sign of a working brewkit either so I'm not sure if my Marcowe (Märzen) was brewed on-site. It was the right colour of darkish amber anyway, but rather bland beyond that, despite a substantial 5.8% ABV. There's a vague noble hop greenness but nothing I'd call character. Still, I shouldn't have come to Bierhalle expecting to be wowed.

Not far from the dead centre of town is Kontynuacja, a definite outpost of Craftonia with its high ceilings, whitewashed walls, cooler-than-you barstaff and an ever changing blackboard of local and international beers. A New England-style IPA seems only appropriate.

Mine was Juicilicious from Piwne Podziemie. It certainly looked like juice, all headless and opaque. And it tasted exactly like orange juice too: one of those situations where I'm momentarily entertained by the special effect and then disappointed because what I wanted was a beer. A few modern beery elements creep in after a few sips: a concentrated buzz of garlic and a gritty yeast bite. With a little cleaning up this would be an archetype for the style, and I confess I did enjoy my glass of it. I wanted a beer next, though.

Not that I had a choice. Martyn had spotted Maryensztadt's Brytyjskie on the board and two glasses of that were required. There was a beer engine on the bar but I think this came from the regular tap. Still it was headless and rather flat, so may as well have been a Polish take on cask bitter. A tangy orange flavour goes in the good column; a dusty staleness in the bad one. Overall it was convincing as a bitter but not convincing as a beer anyone would like to drink. Someone from the brewery must have had terrible luck drinking in England if they came away thinking British beer tastes like this.

And with that we headed back to the festival for a nightcap I described in Wednesday's post.

Just one more beer before we finish: I couldn't leave without a swift pint of the local macro lager Piast, once brewed in a handsome 19th century building across the way from Stu Mostów but since moved out of town by owners Carlsberg. It's a rich gold colour and has a significant noble hop character touching celery and spinach. 5.5% ABV gives it more depth and heft than most industrial lagers, and although there's a slight syrupy quality, it's smooth enough to be easy drinking. Definitely one for the Better Than It Needs To Be file.

Thanks for Tomasz and the Wrocław Cultural Centre for putting me up and allowing me to take an intensive tutorial in the Polish beer scene in 2019. I do need to explore this country further, though perhaps at a more relaxed pace next time. Meanwhile, the Wrocław festival is well worth your time next year if you haven't been.

Wotcha Łódź!

The biannual summit of Europe's beer consumer organisations took place in Poland last month, hosted by Bractwo Piwne which was celebrating 20 years of campaigning. The venue was Bractwo's mother city of Łódź, a place which grew large and wealthy in the textile trade but is now more famous for its universities and the imaginative uses it has found for grand nineteenth-century industrial buildings. The beer scene is healthy and thriving, much like most other Polish cities, it seems. Reuben and I managed to squeeze a bit of pub-hopping around the busy business schedule over our three days there.

Most of the venues are just off the long straight spine of Piotrkowska, the main commercial street. Our first port of call was Rademenes, where we followed a sign advertising regional beers through an archway and into a diner-style pub, all tiled floors and vinyl banquettes. The pub's mascot is a black cat who likes to drape herself across the patron's shoulders as he goes about his duties. The taps are few and unmarked so we opted for pointing at bottles from the sizeable collection on display. Funnily enough the first one I noticed was Lublin to Dublin, brewed by Carlow Brewing as a collaboration with Pinta, a brewing company down south near Katowice. Next to it, some other Pinta beers, so that's where I started.

Atak Chmielu ("Hop Attack" - chmielu is about the only word of Polish I learned all trip) is a 6.1% ABV IPA. Quite a sweet one too, despite the name: I got lots of brown sugar in the aroma and caramel in the flavour. There's a very slight herbal citrus element and an acrid bitterness, both of which put me in mind of hop-forward beers that are past their best. I'm not sure if that's the case here, but it's certainly one that didn't live up to the promise of its name. You can read more about the iconic status of Atak Chmielu on Zythophile here. Reuben chose Hopus Pokus, also by Pinta. This black IPA is 6.3% ABV and big on hop bitters and stout-like roast. Smooth, drinkable, but maybe shading a little towards bland, especially given the strength.

The next stop was rather more geek-focused. Piwoteka is a long narrow sequence of rooms on the ground floor of a grand building, with a short bar up at one end. A blackboard lists a dozen or so draught options, including several on cask. And it was to the handpumps I turned first, choosing Black Hope by AleBrowar, a contract brand from up near Gdańsk. This was altogether more complex than Pinta's effort, with lots more roast up front, giving way to crunchy green vegetal depths. So far so stout-like but then there's this odd floral flourish in the finish indicating some generous late hopping. The low carbonation makes it a very gulpable beer, though I wonder if the hops might be more pronounced in a keg version. I enjoyed it, though. Reuben's choice was Reden's Zabobon. Thankfully the descriptions were in English because I don't know how long it would have taken us to decipher that this is designated a smoked imperial India brown ale. Chestnut red, it opens with a lovely freshly-grilled kipper aroma and the smoke really dominates the flavour to begin. Underneath there's a smooth and sweet red ale given just an edge by assertive bittering. But you only get a glimpse before the smoke clouds cloak the palate once again. I'm normally quite sceptical about the place of smoke in heavy sweet ales like this, but it really works well here.

On the next round I wanted the black saison by Kraftwerk (another contract operation) but it was just about out so I had to content myself with the small sample in the middle of the photo there. Południca is advertised as merely containing "spices" but that's not the half of it. It smells strongly, we agreed, of stuffing and gravy, all dark meat and oily sage. That sage is so strong in the flavour it made my tongue numb and totally destroyed any other flavours present. Even the signature dry saison bite was barely detectable. An unsettling beer, and I'm slightly glad there wasn't a full measure left.

As a substitute, Reuben chose a different saison, Niezłe Ziółko brewed especially for the pub by local brewer Jan Olbracht. This is herb infused as well, but a little more subtly. It's a hazy gold colour and offers an enticing crispness in its aroma. It tastes quite gruit-like and there's a complex mix of basil, parsley and pepper, resulting in a strange but pleasant sausage flavour. It's another one that may disappoint saison purists, but I liked it.

And on the left of the picture, So Far So Dark, another one from AleBrowar. Fresh coffee and beefy autolysis are the aroma but on tasting it's much less weird, being mainly quite dry with some very pleasant lavender and chocolate. The texture is one of its best features, heavy and filling, and I was surprised to find it's a mere 6.2% ABV.

Off the other side of Piotrkowska from Piwoteka is probably my favourite bar in the city, Z Innej Becki. This rambles through the large vaulted basement of a grand villa and is reached via a spacious beer garden below street level. Like Piwoteka, draught beer selection is done via a numbered blackboard but the range is even bigger here.

First up for me was a Mosaic IPA by a Wrocław-based contract brand which operates under the trustworthy name of Doctor Brew. And it does everything you'd want from something calling itself by that name: an aroma of fresh and tinglingly spicy mandarins and a zippy, zesty fruit flavour, all nectarine and mango, just shading into dense herbal dank in the finish. One of those beers to give a ticker pause when choosing what to have next. Not me though, obviously.

Reuben didn't have such good fortune with his choice of AleBrowar's Crazy Mike double IPA. This is a dense amber beer and smells as much of caramel as citric hops. There are lots of heavy resins and heavier toffee in the flavour, and a big bitter bite, so I guess it meets the specification for the style, but there's no real fruit flavour present to make it stand out.

The final pub on the first evening was The Eclipse Inn: a dark, cosy, vaguely English-style basement watering hole. The first beer was on the house, and was the only non-Polish one I drank all trip: Rohozec Skalák Tmavé from the Czech Republic. It's a bang-on Czech dark lager, weighty and wholesome, with all the liquorice and coffee appropriate to the style. I followed it with Reden's Zniwa Chmielarzy on cask. The name (there's that word again!) means "Hop Harvest" as it's brewed with a variety of Polish hops. It's 6% ABV and arrived a murky dark red. There's lots of fake-fruit candy in the flavour, which I quite liked, and traces of mandarin too. A dash of coffee is as grown up as it gets. It could have stood to be colder and became a little cloying as it warmed, but not at all bad if consumed quickly.

Also on the bar of the Eclipse was Birbant White AIPA, a beautifully mellow and mild beer with all the juicy fruits and invigorating spices typically found in white IPAs, but none of the jarring harshness they sometimes show. Spicebomb of the night was Deep Love, a rye IPA with Amarillo, Mosaic, Simcoe and Chinook hops fermented with a saison yeast, the creation of AleBrowar in collaboration with international saison fiends Nøgne Ø. Resins loom large here, and there's an almost burning incense quality to the flavour. It prickles the palate, like popping candy. A very interesting combination of ingredients, even if I wouldn't be on for drinking lots of this.

A return to Pinta for the last beer of the evening: Rai z Rais, one of the brewery's monthly experimental series, and a 7.9% ABV "double rice Galaxy IPA" . Well OK then. It's surprisingly easy drinking, given the strength, and the masses of tongue-coating hop oils. There are some gentler floral qualities too, helping cool the alcohol heat and take the edge off any harshness. No idea what the rice is doing there, but no harm done.

We decided that was probably enough beer for the first evening. More pub action next, and maybe a beer festival too.