Austria
Our Guide To Austria’s Best Pubs and Bars
Vienna itself has a dispersed and difficult to figure out bar scene, making it tricky to arrange anything like a pub crawl. There is almost certainly a lively underground club scene which I know little and care little about. If any of these clubs manages to out-do themselves on style and décor, or atmosphere, please let us know.
Vienna is famous for it’s Beisls, traditional pub-eateries offering hearty fare and fresh beer. Often smokey, raw and authentic, they are also a mixed bag and some will be too food-focused to be considered true pubs. A Beisl such as Gosser Bierklinik gets the balance just right, with a separate pub room or “Schanke” where the locals smoke and chat with a beer, and food is an optional extra.
There is one mediocre middle-brow brewpub in the centre, 1516 which has made an attempt to make the interior a bit more homely and pub-like, but the obviously newly constructed feel was still slightly sterile, and the beer offering only okay. As with a lot of these places, they attract passing trade and feel transient rather than a base for regulars.
The highlight from my research is Kanguruh, a pub specialising in 100+ Belgian beers nearly all a set price at 4 euros 50 cents, meaning there are many bargains to be found. The atmosphere is terrific, a shady candlelit venue with a mixture of locals and intrepid travellers. Follow the link above for our full write-up.
The restaurant Bauern Brau in the centre of Vienna serves beer from a microbrewery in Styria (which you are much less likely to visit), so serves as a de facto brewery tap. The food is great and the beer was very good, so I would also recommend coming for an evening meal. It’s not a bar or a pub though, be warned, it just happens to be a very nice restaurant serving beer from a less common and very good brewery.
Much more research is required before I can claim to be anything like an expert on the Austrian pub scene, but you can help too – please let me know your suggestions as we expand our set of recommendations!
Ratings Key:
A: Choice and/or quality of drinks
B: Style and décor
C: Atmosphere and feel
D: Amenities, Events & Community
E: Value for money
F: The Pub Going Factor
Bars marked with (*) will take you to our full profile write-up!
| Name | Location | A | B | C | D | E | F |
| Kanguruh * | Vienna | 10 | 9 | 9 | 6 | 8 | 9 |
| Gösser Bierklinik | Vienna | 7 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 5 | 8 |
Vienna
population 1,868,000
Vienna itself has a dispersed and difficult to figure out bar scene, making it tricky to arrange anything like a pub crawl. There is almost certainly a lively underground club scene which I know little and care little about. If any of these clubs manages to out-do themselves on style and décor, or atmosphere, please let us know.
Vienna is famous for it’s Beisls, traditional pub-eateries offering hearty fare and fresh beer. Often smokey, raw and authentic, they are also a mixed bag and some will be too food-focused to be considered true pubs. A Beisl such as Gosser Bierklinik gets the balance just right, with a separate pub room or “Schanke” where the locals smoke and chat with a beer, and food is an optional extra.
There is one mediocre middle-brow brewpub in the centre, 1516 which has made an attempt to make the interior a bit more homely and pub-like, but the obviously newly constructed feel was still slightly sterile, and the beer offering only okay. As with a lot of these places, they attract passing trade and feel transient rather than a base for regulars.
The highlight from my research is Kanguruh, a pub specialising in 100+ Belgian beers nearly all a set price at 4 euros 50 cents, meaning there are many bargains to be found. The atmosphere is terrific, a shady candlelit venue with a mixture of locals and intrepid travellers. Follow the link above for our full write-up.
The restaurant Bauern Brau in the centre of Vienna serves beer from a microbrewery in Styria (which you are much less likely to visit), so serves as a de facto brewery tap. The food is great and the beer was very good, so I would also recommend coming for an evening meal. It’s not a bar or a pub though, be warned, it just happens to be a very nice restaurant serving beer from a less common and very good brewery.
Wiener Neustadt
population 43,000
A stuffy middle class market town with a typically peripheral element of seditious teenage boredom. Good bars are difficult to detect, perhaps because they aren’t there.