EBG Rating: 7.7/10

Choice/Quality of Drinks:
❤️❤️❤️
Poutník beer on tap and a typical Czech back bar. Still Poutník is usually more than adequate.

Style/Décor:
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Standalone traditional house on a sloped steep street with patio in front. Inside a two room pub decorated with expressive oil paintings. Blue table cloths. Simple set up.

Atmosphere/Character:
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Unpretentious and humble, low-key, so much so that many areas of the city aren’t aware it is even here.

Amenities/Events:
❤️❤️❤️
Snacks, outdoor seating, TV.

Value For Money:
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Good value for money.

Description:
On our first visit to Brno 2016, wet behind the ears, it felt brave even walking out to Starobrno brewery at Mendlovo Namesti. Something about travel, especially solo travel feels better with training wheels on at first. The sandbox of a city centre, the swaddling comfort of historic institutions. In a country like Czechia where finding English speakers is a lottery, and some of the pub etiquette can be intimidating, all this acts as a multiplying factor to playing it safe.

Then you visit U Bláhovky and you realise those training wheels need throwing in the skip. Enjoying Brno, just like enjoying life, is about exploring and placing yourself in unusual situations.

Then, 9 years later having explored most of the centre, you find yourself changing at the Pisárky tram stop for a bus up the hill to Kamenny Vrch (High Stones?) for this pub.

It isn’t actually as far as it looks, with only the brief connection for a 2 minute long bus ride adding any complexity at all.

Agreed, this venue may not be the first, nor indeed the 50th name on anyone’s lips. While Bláhovky occupies a position of national fame despite being in an outlying district rather than a city centre, here is a pub that many people who live in Brno may not have heard of or even be aware exists.

It’s a charming little place, a house stood alone on a steep street, with patio in front for outdoor seating.

The name, simply “Old Pub” won’t win awards for creativity but are at least illustrative.

Speaking of which, as you enter you will discover a two room pub with large framed artworks in a distinctive expressive style, a pub with humble furnishings and blue table cloths, and an outfit that is homespun, unpretentious and focused on the job. They’re well aware they aren’t putting on a show for a coach full of day-trippers.

One of Brno’s favourite beers is Poutnik from Pelhrimov which can be sourced here fresh and at a fair price. From our point of view the offering of Poutnik is nearly always adequate, it isn’t like this place was ever going to have 12 pale ales and sours on tap.

They run the pub a little like a shop/café which gives the place a hint of something like a Croatian Caffe Bar, just one that was actually decorated imaginatively and had any grasp at all of ambience and dynamics.

This extends to the service which is not exactly effusive in warmth and welcome but won’t raise an eyebrow to an unfamiliar face either. They run a pub, you’re after a beer and to relax, so why wouldn’t you be here?

For its unusual, yet homely interior, a sense of departure from the city, a tasty beer at a fair price, Stará Hospoda is worth serious consideration, and after all is not difficult to reach. Let the wind take you, spread your wings and enjoy some of the subtler, suffused delights Brno has to offer.

(Added July 2025)