Tag Archives: bars

Känguruh, Vienna

…back to Austria

kanguruh
BĂĽrgerspitalgasse 20, 1060 Wien, Austria

It’s a slightly off-kilter situation for Vienna’s best bar to specialise in Belgian beer and be called Kangaroo, but there you are.

Känguruh is apparently a reference to the frequent confusion between Austria and Australia, although why it then goes to offer a large menu of bottled Belgian beer is anyone’s guess. So stylistic consistency…not really this place’s strong suit. However, it’s all good things from here.

The beers are nearly all 4 euros 50, which in certain cases is extraordinarily good value, meaning you can try rare small batch brews, quadrupel strength beers, lambic, etc for less than you would pay in Brussels city centre. As anyone who has tried Belgian beer can expect, the quality is terrific (though the staff will weary a little if you keep making them leave the bar area to dig out their rarer items from the archives at the back). However, the bar also have 6 taps on rotation, largely German and Czech beer if you require lighter high-volume refreshment and there’s barely a crap beer in sight.

Aside from the beers being exceptionally good, the venue itself is cracking. Although the pub is street-facing, they have made a conscious choice to cut off the light filtering through from outside world (it faces a bland street so there isn’t much of a view anyway), so it is one of those places where the transition from outside to inside and vice versa is quite dramatic. I find these sorts of places great at engendering a sense of community – perhaps it’s their ability to make you feel like you’ve left real life temporarily, meaning that while you sit there and continue your drinks and chat, all must be well.

 

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In summer you may find the street-facing terrace area outside open but that really defeats the object of the visit. It’s all about diving into the bowels of a shady, cosy pub.

There is a round bar area and the main room offers largely stool seating, which isn’t ideal, however does reflect the general popularity. The room in the back offers a little more lounge comfort. The atmosphere is shady, candlelit and dramatic, the crowd a mixture of ruminating solo drinkers (referred to as “einslers” in German), couples and friendly youngsters enjoying the close feel and the candle-lit gloom.

Such a place is very appropriate for knocking back Belgian ale, and before long all the outlines of your sight will start to become a little fuzzy. There is a reasonable turnover of patrons so if you don’t strike up a conversation at first, hang around and see what happens. Känguruh stays open til 2am, so let that Belgian ale loosen your lips and you may find just about anything seems able to happen – make a new friend, get punched in the face – the roulette wheel of inebriation spins pretty fast in this place.

Känguruh is a well-known about local legend, one not likely to change in any way any time soon, and an essential visit while in Vienna. One of those places when after your first visit you’ve already decided, ‘if I lived here, this would be my local’.

  • Quality and/or choice of drinks – 10/10
  • Style and Decor – 9/10
  • Character, Atmosphere and/or Local Life – 9/10
  • Amenities, Events & Community – 6/10
  • Value for Money – 6/10
  • The Pub-Going Factor –  9/10

 

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LĂłrien, Palma di Mallorca

…back to Spain
lorien
Carrer de les Caputxines, 5A, 07003 Palma, Illes Balears, Spain
In a city geared up for café culture, tapas, pintxos and wine, the pastime of drinking beer and pub-going currently plays a definite bit-part role in Palma. Going for a night out here generally revolves around visiting various tapas bars on an evening, which are often lively and buzzing but lacking any standout décor and character to distinguish themselves. Indeed, the crowds in those places, the endless snacking and paucity of good beer options become a drawback after a time.
Thankfully Lorien has stepped into the breach, a superb genuine beer pub with a Lord of The Rings theme. This whole notion hangs loosely around the frame of the pub though, think tasteful artwork, motifs and patterns rather than role play and costumes! It isn’t like The Prancing Pony either, although few places are.
The pub tailors itself for an audience who have been starved of choice and quality of beer, stocking a range of Spanish and Mallorcan craft ales on tap along with a healthy supply of beers from more traditional parts of the world. This will come as a refreshing change of speed from the relentlessly uniform options of Estrella or Mahou everywhere else in the city. You’ll be surprised at the length and breadth of the beer menu.
There is a corresponding uptick in price which is hardly surprising given the sheer lack of competition, but given the alternative option is standing around food-munching Mallorcans in corporate tapas bars, or drinking wine in inappropriately intimate cellar bars, it’s worth it.
Furthermore, Lorien succeeds by being a real pub. You will find corner bench seating arranged in a communal, inwardly facing main room – a pub, in essence – and unsurprisingly a rather different crowd of young people than the dress-to-impress crowd in the tapas bars, going for a drink and a chat in a cosy and informal setting.

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The bar staff are almost textbook beer monsters: bald, big beards and big beer guts, and are more than happy to chew over your drinking options. You’ll find English is commonly spoken, as is often a big plus of craft beer places abroad when you’re trying to decipher what to drink, or just to have a friendly conversation.
However, this is more than just a venue for craft beer, there is a real effort made to engender a local drinking spot and community. Thankfully Lorien strikes the balance right between the studious beer contemplation and a friendly community.
Anyone frustrated by the other options and angling for a good beer and a communal pub in Palma must start by making a pilgrimage to Lorien, perhaps meeting your own Lady Galadriel along the way!
There are no two ways about it – if I lived in Palma, Lorien would be my local of choice.
  • Quality and/or choice of drinks – 8/10
  • Style and Decor – 8/10
  • Character, Atmosphere and/or Local Life – 9/10
  • Amenities, Events & Community – 7/10
  • Value for Money – 6/10
  • F: The Pub-Going Factor –  9/10
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t’Brugs Beertje, Brugge

…back to Belgium

tbrugsebeertje

t’Brug Beertje, Kemelstraat 5, 8000 Brugge, Belgium

The alchemy of what constitutes a good pub is worthy of considerable study, and partly why this site was created.  The Little Bruges Bear is an excellent place to begin.

While there are so very many hundreds of bars and pubs across Europe missing essential ingredients, scrambling in the dark in their search to attract patrons, despite having a reliable formula almost laid out for them, this pub serves to illustrate how simple the task is.

t’Brugs Beertje is a cosy communal venue with the dimensions and confines of a snug brown cafĂ©/pub decorated with wood panelled walls and adorned well selected and stylish bar ephemera. There is a choice of simple wooden seating or slightly more comfortable bench seating if you’re lucky enough to swoop in and claim it. Ask to peruse their enormous menu of Belgian beer, presented in the form of an almanac that takes a good 20 minutes to look through properly and consider a selection of typical Belgian snack options (gouda, biscuits, meat platters, croque monsieur etc) to go with. Just thinking about this while writing is salivating.

Hanging above the bar is a gleaming selection of the various beer glasses each tailored to their specific beer, every single flavour journey mapped out by their brewers right down to the way the beer sits in a glass, tempered to the point of maximising every single potential for an improvement of the experience, telling of a country utterly obsessed with the art of brewing and the pleasure of drinking. There will be a beer for you in this pub, or I’m afraid there is no beer for you.

Service is efficient and attentive, while the prices are 20-30 cents higher than other nearby places, but not punishingly so. This can be offset by choosing a rare beer you’re unlikely to get anywhere else (my suggestion would be to try an Oud Bruin/Flemish Red style, which apart from Rodenbach are less commonly exported to the UK, while curiously, the style hasn’t yet caught on as a craft brewing style despite the proliferation of red ales and sours).

BrugsBeertje_tcm13-9835

The enormous popularity of the place has unfortunately driven locals away apart from a few quiet months in the New Year before Easter. Normally it would earn a mark down for that, as it’s important for a pub to have an original community element, but the place must be given a free pass. The ideal would be for it to contain a healthy mixture of both locals and a few tourists, but the world has taken over Bruges in the last 10 years. In lieu of local life, the shining qualities of the pub, that seem to epitomise everything good about traditional beer drinking in Belgium, compensate adequately.

The pub opens at 5pm and by 5.30 nearly every seat is taken. After that it’s a case of waiting politely at the door and taking your chance to swoop to a seat. Once seated, it’s unlikely you’ll see a reason to leave any time soon. It’s a rare example of a place where I would actually wait for 10-15 minutes to be seated.

The main room has a terrific atmosphere, watching folk come and go, but if that’s not available, the backroom has a lovely down-to-earth feel, like a rambler’s pub full of strangers thrown together in the tangle of a boozy evening. This compensates well for the lack of local characters. Only the matter of being on holiday, in Bruges of all places could distract a visitor from staying there all night, returning at opening time the next day and doing the same. It is the best pub in Bruges and there’s no doubt that this is pub going at its very best.

  • A: Quality and/or choice of drinks – 10/10
  • B: Style and Decor – 10/10
  • C: Character, Atmosphere and/or Local Life – 9/10
  • D: Amenities, Events & Community – 5/10
  • E: Value for Money – 6/10
  • F: The Pub-Going Factor –  10/10
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