Tag Archives: beer

U PoutnĂ­ka, Brno

back to Czechia

Vstup branou č.p. 14, Starobrněnská 16/18, 602 00 Brno-stƙed, Czechia
  • Quality and/or choice of drinks –9/10
  • Style and Decor – 8/10
  • Character, Atmosphere and/or Local Life – 9/10
  • Amenities, Events & Community – 6/10
  • Value for Money – 10/10
  • The Pub-Going Factor –  9/10

Czechia excels in very unpretentious pubs devoted to swilling high quality beers of its own making. These pubs are the very definition of down-to-earth (particularly the ones located in cellars), welcoming all comers so long as they wish to experience and uphold this noble mission.

U Poutnika is Brno’s best example, possessing attributes common to those rare standout pubs that tie everything they do and everything they are together to produce ‘genius loci‘, a phrase which refers to that most indefinable and frustratingly hard to pin down thing – a place’s ‘spirit’ – (no, not Becherovka or Slivovitz ) – an accumulated sense of place and purpose that produces that atmosphere most people are seeking when they go out and socialise: vitality and character, usually so elusive to the majority of bars and pubs. The phrase ‘you had one job’ springs to mind whenever I think of some the hapless, and occasionally pretentious soulless holes I’ve stepped into.

Genius loci is a very well-used phrase by Czechs on reviews of their pubs, so it seems appropriate to mention it in reference to U Poutnika, which is as good a pick as any to demonstrate how an otherwise simple place with a look you could barely pick out at an identity parade can be elevated by virtue of its operation and customers, who every day contribute in their own way to the maintenance of a tradition, and who knows, perhaps even one day a legend. Some people may scoff at this, but even cursory research indicates that this place, much as several others has had its very existence threatened by bureaucrats, and therefore anyone who in their own way has patronised a pub, become an advocate, or a regular can fairly be argued to be participating in a peaceful revolt against such nonsense.

U Poutnika enjoys a central location in Brno’s ‘old town’ (largely a bustling and business-like provincial city but with some very pretty areas and buildings too), meaning no special trip-out to the suburbs is required in order to join the young, old and everything in-between who drop by on their nightly ritual. Although the pub may be central, its unassuming position nestled in a side-street arcade seems to provide at least some shelter from passing trade. However, upon your arrival you may notice a throng of people outside (all smoking). It will be quite busy, as Brno itself has very lively nightlife of a kind anyone from a northern city in the UK might be quite familiar with.

From a simple look around at the exterior, with its shopping arcade frontage and rather straggly-looking signs you may be adjusting your expectations downwards by the second, and I wouldn’t blame you if you were a touch tremulous arriving solo. Sod it – you’ve come this far, so why baulk at the last minute? Dive inside!

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The taproom is located right at the front, so if you want a quick beer ‘on the stand’ as they say, find a leaning post and have at it. U Poutnika is lucky enough to boast a “tapster” – invariably a rotund, middle-aged man whose sole job is to attend to the cleaning of glasses, pouring of beers and maintenance of the taps and kegs. Separately the server’s job is to go around tables doing the ordering and delivering of said drinks, but if you’re alone it may be easier and quicker (given how busy U Poutnika is) to approach the tapster directly when you first walk in – not always the most pleasant experience. These chaps can be quite growly and monosyllabic, even in their own language, let alone trying to converse with them in yours, so approach with caution, know your ‘dobry den‘ from your ‘ahoj‘ (the latter reserved for friends and regular acquaintances only) and be clear in your demands.

‘Jedno Pivo, prosim‘ will result in being presented with the house light lager, which is the excellent, criminally under-distributed Poutnik Pehlrimov, (translating to Pehlrimov Pilgrim) a Moravian beer difficult to find in Prague and Brno, let alone anywhere else (forget about tracking it down in the UK). As always in Czechia, light lager is so much more than the thin, gloopy and over-crisp offerings Brits are used to. This beer is poured with a smooth thick head, giving you a correspondingly thicker, smoother drink, and one which is so easy to knock back it becomes virtually irresistible. They do the 12 degrees and the unfiltered equivalent. That’s all – and that’s all that’s required. Try escaping from a pub having had just one half-litre of Poutnik – I haven’t seen it happen yet.

And ‘Czech‘ out the prices (sorry, I had to do that once and I promise never to do so again) – unbelievable! 29 crowns for a half-litre, ie. a pound a pint in a city centre pub, without having to enter into a slum with a tap, or one of Czechia’s notoriously rough and occasionally dodgy ‘Nonstop’ Herna pubs that stay open 24 hours for gambling, chain smoking and putting back of gallons worth of budget lager in a haze of depression. This great value has not escaped the attention of everyone – the pub is name-checked in a 2010 article in The Guardian.

Fuck, we haven’t even sat down yet! Have a glance around the taproom first – there are usually some pub emblems, mascots and ornaments that give a place individuality, and U Poutnika is no different in that respect, but head into the backroom for the sit-down and a chat amongst Brno’s finest.

You’ll find a curved ceiling in the archetypal Czech pivnice style, bench seating around the perimeter and plenty of communal tables, with a yellow ceiling telling tales of the millions of cigarettes smoked in the room and a palpable sense of history reverberating through the echoes and murmurations of friendly conversation going on around you.

Once seated, the server will be round to hand out a slip, and mark your slip for every beer you consume. He works pretty hard considering the almost constant demand for fresh beers – it is no cushy job, and you can tell that by the thickness of forearm and glistening forehead. The drinking goes on between 2pm and midnight – a relatively late closing time in a country with a more conservative attitude in that regard.

As with a lot of the best pubs, the come-one-come-all inclusivity here is what makes it – you can rub shoulders with students, architects, petty philosophers, borderline-vagrants, politicians, quiet pensioners, who may sit there silent for an hour before a conversation topic sparks them into life. Idle chit chat, card games, passionate political discussions, bitter feuds over sporting rivalries, it’s all to be had in places like this where everyone no matter how low or lofty is allowed to express themselves and be at one with each other.

It’s the kind of pub you would make your local minutes after moving into town.

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Bernard pri LĂœceu, Bratislava

back to Slovakia

  • Quality and/or choice of drinks – 9/10
  • Style and Decor – 6/10
  • Character, Atmosphere and/or Local Life – 8/10
  • Amenities, Events & Community – 6/10
  • Value for Money – 10/10
  • The Pub-Going Factor –  8/10

The appeal of pure, unfettered going out to the pub, without extra bullshit or pretensions is something that grows on you the longer you spend time in Czechia or Slovakia, both countries that are strong on substance over style. Backing this philosophy up is their retinue of absolutely excellent world class beer kept to strict and exacting standards that is so singularly enjoyable you can find yourself in many scuzzy and otherwise unappealing dive bars still with something worth clinging onto (literally) . Not only that, but the sheer simplicity of the arrangement. A warm homely room with comfortable seating and good beer for a chat and a good time among your peers. Whatever gimmicks bars with throw at you, a million beers on tap, a sheet urinal with slices of orange in it, or drinks priced according to the stock exchange, it all eventually comes down to a room, a drink, and a good time. If you haven’t got that, you may as well be running a hardware store for all I care.

This Bernard Pivo insignia pub typifies working class drinking, set with only a car park between it and the dual carriageway out of town. It’s easy to reach if you’re near Bratislava old town, 15 minutes walk, so close you can still hear the trams exiting the tunnel under the castle (well worth a closer look in the dusky hours). The discount supermarket and sex shop next door certainly hammers home the gritty location, yet in spite of its grim view of the motorway and dubious neighbours the pub offers a surprisingly pleasant terrace area outside with covered bench seating that compliments the pub itself quite well.

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Don’t expect a warm welcome at the door, for this place is not about such fripperies. Czechoslovakian (in this sense I believe the defunct term still is applicable) service is almost routinely noted for being gruff and workmanlike at best and openly hostile at worst. The real welcome hug, if you were searching for one, is written on the blackboard stand by the pub, boasting nearly the full Bernard range, from the simple 10 degrees light lager or  ‘desitka‘, at barely a euro for a glass right up to the stronger special beers. Walk inside and find a very simple cosy room decorated like it hasn’t seen the fall of the Berlin wall, with a dinky bar area in the corner. There is a TV adjacent and some ice hockey memorabilia dotted around the place.

Don’t expect anything fancy – though I hardly telegraphed that it would be, did I? – it’s a classic local drinking hole with a vaguely nostalgic sporty theme. The staff won’t speak English (unless really, really pressed to) but neither do they utter any objection when you order a beer – they know why you are here and behind the stoic expressions they are pleased to serve, in that solemn Slavic way. The other patrons inside barely even turn around to acknowledge you, clouded in their haze of cigarette smoke and drunkenness, something which might give you peace of mind if you find the prospect of entering pajzls like this place intimidating.

There isn’t really space at the bar to have a beer na stojaka so if you’re going for a good time not a long time, your arse will need to make contact with some furniture. Not to worry, expect plenty of seats inside to go at. Hey, why not surprise them by choosing in Slovakian – desitka, jedenactka or dvanactka (3.8%, 4.5% or 5.0% Bernard lager) prosim – you might cause a flicker of an eyelid, which would be something of a successful extraction from a Slovakian tapster in my experience. Or they’ll just be annoyed you spoke Czech to them.

The terrace is a bit more communal, so even if you aren’t involved in any socialising directly and have arrived on your own there is a friendly feel to sit amongst the hubbub, and comes recommended over sitting indoors if the weather is fair. If you’re there in January dive inside the Dive! The pub crowd is an odd split between young couples and students who sit outside and typically grizzled old boozehounds who wander in and out between cigs and beer, but this crankily functional dynamic works in its favour and I quite like places like this that throw different groups of people together. That’s what a true pub should do.

The Bernard is excellent, disappearing down the hatch with alarming ease. Quite often you’ll arrive with the noble intention of staying for one, then ten minutes later, having found yourself dispatching a whole large beer, well and truly snared into staying for another, partly because you don’t want to move on so soon, partly because the beer is so fucking good. On both occasions I found myself dispatching several in short order, the price and quality proving irresistible. If you google the pub most of the photographs are simply pictures of glasses filled to varying levels, testifying to how well they keep their beer in this pub that anyone thinks someone would want to look at that.

While there are many humdrum aspects to Bernard pri Lyceu you could probably find in dozens of other hospodas in the city, I couldn’t think of a better example of a comfortable, strongly-supported working class venue, and the beer and value just tops it off.

When compared to the central brewery and pub Mestiansky Pivovar with its glass, chrome and corporate feel, Bernard pri Lyceu provides a stark contrast but equally, a welcome reminder of the more homely and simple values of pub going. I would include it on any night out in Bratislava. If you don’t believe me, check out what other people are saying.

Since first exploring this pub in 2015 I have been lucky enough to return many times since.

Happy to report that little has changed (except perhaps the price of a beer, which isn’t as good value, though still about the cheapest in the city). In particular, I was able to visit at different times of day. The evening atmosphere turns into a little clubhouse with its own special atmosphere. As before, so now. Excellent pub.

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À la Mort Subite, Bruxelles

back to Belgium

alamortsubite
Rue Montagne aux Herbes PotagĂšres 7, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgium

There is sometimes a premium to be paid on a special occasion, so on my annual visit to A La Mort Subite I breathe in deeply and dive more deeply still into my wallet, on account of the luxurious overall experience of visiting this splendid Bruxelles bar.

Distinctly Parisien in format, this opulent faded-grandeur art nouveau venue (translation: At The Sudden Death) is one of Brussels and Belgiums most famous bars, so no surprises or left-field picks from me this time. A la Mort Subite might count as a brown cafĂ© for the bench seating up the sides of the long room, if it wasn’t for the lack of brown elsewhere. Cream walls and pillars, the elegant ornamental dĂ©cor stacked with studded crenullations, mirror panels and a stately, out of time design. You have a venue somewhere in between a cafĂ© and a salon, originally built as a place for socialites to be seen in, yet, being Belgian, still focused predominantly on beer. The dĂ©cor has such an authentic and preserved quality (no change since 1928, save for the occasional running repair) so it’s difficult to think of too many other places that are alike.

Mort Subite supplies the draft beer, and this brewery serves fruit beers and lambic effect rather than the real wild yeast sour lambics McCoy. They are still rich in flavour and sweetness, and a tad sour, but lacking any sort of dryness and depth that might indicate the traditional lambic brewing process. A small serving of their kriek for example, which would be a good choice, will set you back five euros on its own. Some of the other options are fairly astronomical considering the price one can drink for elsewhere in excellent surroundings. Mort Subite beer may as well be drunk here as much as anywhere on the globe. With this being Brussels you can expect a small food menu with cheese, charcuterie options and the usual pub food like croque monsieur to help your beer go down (as if anyone should need help finishing a Belgian beer!)

 

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The bar clearly feel they are unique to set such a high price, and annoyingly, they are right. An afternoon drink in A la Mort Subite can feel rather like a drink in a grand cafĂ©, nice enough in itself, but the bar character starts to come alive in the early evening time as the crowd changes, and you can suddenly start to absorb some of the atmosphere and understand the underlying reasons for the endurance of this place. A special bleary eyed feel starts to develop, the sharp lines and corners blurring into the cream colours, like dropping into a dreamworld. That’ll also be the strong beer…

The grandeur and glamour of socialising in the inter-war era is yet to be recreated around Europe on any identifiable level, save for the odd outstanding example, partly because of the lack of venues who have committed to investing the kind of money to pull it off well, and also because the eventual crowd it attracts tend to have little to no appreciation of their surroundings anyway.

Service is almost classically continental, with wide stomached balding René type characters smoothly dissecting the venue with assurance and steady hands under the drinks trays. They are immaculately professional and patient considering conveyor belt of foreign tourists and the format of table service requiring more work than is strictly necessary. These characters add further to the sense of intransigent and reliability that lend a place a certain charm, that A la Mort Subite certainly possesses.

Although the evening and night crowd appeals to a few nostalgic locals who insist bars like these used to be abundant, a large volume tourists of venture in during the daytime, and because of the heritage of the place, often an aged crowd at that. The only sudden death that occurs in this bar is from pneumonia and cardiac arrest, I suspect.

Changing the venue in anyway seems to be verboten, and I wouldn’t approve major adjustments either ,however it seems to me there is nothing to stop the place rejigging the drinks choices and doing some marketing from the outside, as this venue is not designed for middle aged obese American sat in Burghaus jackets, it is designed for the young, the stylish and the vibrant. The way to really bring back the good old days isn’t just to leave the dĂ©cor and service meticulously unchanged and hope for the best. The good old days were good because they were vital, vibrant and inhabited a nascent social scene. The place could do more in that regard by hosting more events, perhaps some understated live music, and so on.

In order for A La Mort Subite to take the next step, they need to be brave enough to recapture the zeitgeist in a way that doesn’t upset the period features, rather than settling for being a museum.

A La Mort Subite is a preserved remnant of a particular era and a great opportunity for anyone with a real passion in the rich and diverse history of socialising, beer drinking and recreational culture to step out of the every day experience and soak in the special character of the place. There are scarcely grander or more historical venues to recline and get merry with some astoundingly good beer. It may be so well known as to be passĂ©, and it isn’t the pinnacle itself of pub going, but that doesn’t stop it being one of the best bars in Europe.

  • Quality and/or choice of drinks – 7/10
  • Style and Decor – 9/10
  • Character, Atmosphere and/or Local Life – 8/10
  • Amenities, Events & Community – 5/10
  • Value for Money – 4/10
  • The Pub-Going Factor –  8/10
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K.K.C (KaƆepes KultĆ«ras centrs), Riga

…back to Latvia

kkc

Skolas iela 15, Centra rajons, RÄ«ga,

After being exposed to the ruin bar scene in Budapest, any other venue elsewhere that aims to achieve a similar thing becomes immediately of interest.

Riga’s basket case old town makes for an uneven and at times quite hollow night out, as the centre is overpriced and caters for stag tourism with the effect that it virtually eradicates locals. This is not to say there are no bars worthy of note, but after a while you begin to wonder where the young Rigans are actually hanging out.

K.K.C is one of the answers to that question, set in a large building which looks somewhere between a mansion house or an old municipal building. It is located north of the old town in ‘Centrs’ a fascinating district full of grandiose pre-war and inter-war buildings, a hodgepodge of interesting styles, and yet slightly sad and neglected, a mini Gotham City, if you like. The area feels like it has a lot of potential to be refurbished and preserved, but whether there is enough money to bring that about is another matter.

K.K.C has an attractive courtyard area which the building wraps around, and upon arriving (providing it’s Spring or summer) you’ll notice lots of people are happy sitting around on ledges with a beer and socialising.

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Indoors there is a mixture of art space and more conventional bar-like rooms, with friendly service, cheap decent beers and a refreshing DIY approach. The good reviews of the place are well deserved as it provides a much needed break from the norm, and in the summer especially it would be the ideal spot to hang out outside of the old town. It does have that slightly thrilling lawless feel of a squat a la Metelkova mixed with an atmospheric bohemian ruin bar – reinforced when you remind yourself K.K.C translates to Cannabis Cultural Centre – though don’t get your hopes up – Kanepe (or Hemp in Latvian) is simply the surname of the owner.

The mixture of faint dilapidation, art space and bric-a-brac creates a nice atmosphere. In some of the rooms the wooden construction of the house, choice of hung artwork and items like pianos definitely give it a feel of the lunatics taking over the asylum, which adds something on top of your usual bar going experience. Make sure you explore as there are far more rooms than initially meets the eye!

The venue has even more potential than they seem to realise, and it will be interesting to see whether they ever truly get to work on the dĂ©cor, but for the time bring you can come along for its exhibitions, concerts, or more likely just for a beer and a chat to hang out. Don’t despair of the offerings in the old town – real Riga is alive and well, only a short walk away!

  • Quality and/or choice of drinks – 7/10
  • Style and Decor – 8/10
  • Character, Atmosphere and/or Local Life – 8/10
  • Amenities, Events & Community – 8/10
  • Value for Money – 8/10
  • F: The Pub-Going Factor –  9/10
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Sarajevska Pivara, Sarajevo

Back to Bosnia

Franjevačka 15, Sarajevo 71000
  • Quality and/or choice of drinks – 7/10
  • Style and Decor – 9/10
  • Character, Atmosphere and/or Local Life – 8/10
  • Amenities, Events & Community – 7/10
  • Value for Money – 7/10
  • The Pub-Going Factor –  8/10

Updated: April 2019 after a recent visit

The best traditional brewery in the Balkans, a visit to Pivnica HS at Sarajevska Pivara for a beer and a nosy around is essential, almost regardless of the externalities.

Sarajevsko lager would be fairly anonymous were it sold in England or Germany but it just shows the paucity of real options in the former Yugoslav states that such a beer manages to stand out.

There’s no point being too sniffy about it though, they aren’t bad beers brewed here by any means, especially if you can drink the tank stuff which gets sent across the city, or if you visit the brewery itself, where the best tasting Sarajevsko can be found. They have recently added an unfiltered version to the roster as well.

The brewery is located close to the centre, so can be joined on to any pub crawl near the old town fairly easily. The building was a concern of the Austro-Hungarian empire, constructed in 1864, so you won’t have any trouble finding it among the apartment blocks and Ottoman buildings of the old town. Even if you have a poor sense of direction, don’t worry, the enormous backlit sign against the frontage will guide you there like a beacon.

The brewery buildings are a wonderful 19th century creation, lavish renaissance gothic design which compares among the most beautiful old breweries in the world.

Although anything Austrian was a target of hatred for the Bosnians while they were under the yoke of imperial rule, over time the locals have grown an attachment to this place, having gradually appreciated it to be a cultural asset and a source of jobs rather than grumbling about it being some imperial vestige. (Astonishingly some people still hold a grudge despite the Empire ceasing to exist over a century ago)

Once you arrive, keep heading through the doors to find the pivnica inside, which is a grand Germanic beer hall with a theatrical shape, a central area surrounded by balcony levels. This isn’t some modest or unconvincing imitation of another country’s style, it would be as impressive were it in Munich or Vienna. Opulent would be the word – it’s certainly there to make a statement. Take a seat and before long one of their ambling rotund servers will approach to take your order. Splutter ‘Pivo molim’ if you’re on your own, ‘piva molim’ if you’re in a group, some beer will then arrive.

Gender politics are perhaps not quite as progressive in Bosnia as they are in the UK, and you can still expect the marketing of their beer to feature a sizeable bosom, often with a plate of meaty food. If you meet any Bosnians aged over 30, the strategy will hardly surprise you. See below:

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The beers are served in sturdy dimpled mugs and are fresh as you’re ever likely to get. The ‘tamno’ dark larger is much more generic, and probably best avoided out of winter unless you’re trying to increase your check-in count on Untappd. Sources reveal they have brought out an unfiltered lager since my visit, which will almost certainly be an improvement and is something I’d encourage anyone to try straight away.

It’s such a large venue, large groups are required to build the atmosphere inside. As it is rarely busier than ‘ticking over’, there is an unexploited potential here, however neither does it feel particularly abandoned. There’s a pleasant atmosphere as the disparate conversations bounce across the room. Take a minute or two to explore the bar area and the upstairs, as it really is a grand place.

A beer won’t set you back more a few Bosnian marks, so there’s no impediment to staying here for the duration and getting sloshed. Keep an eye out for the museum and lunch deal, if you’re coming during the day, which at 12 euros 50 represents pretty good value for western wallets.

It’s always interesting seeing attempts to transplant one culture into another, and this pivnica/pivara allows you to experience this AND go to the pub. A slight improvement to the beer and the atmosphere aside, this place is fascinating, good fun and comes highly recommended.

 

 

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SpiĆŒ, WrocƂaw

back to Poland

Spiz

Ratusz 2, 50-106 WrocƂaw, Poland

The history of the ‘Ratskeller’ in central Europe is rich and fascinating, not least because the concept of the main social meeting place being in the epicentre of the town was the signature of medieval towns. Yet for various reasons this has become lost, even countries famed for such traditions, not least Germany. The cities expanded, the places became victims of their own success? Who knows.

Wroclaw has a great deal of crossover culture with Germany, being known as ‘Breslau’ by their neighbours, and along with that, the drinking culture centred in traditional fashion on the city’s extremely large and impressive Rynek. Today, the Ratskeller ‘Spiz’ delivers to modern Poland such an correct feeling representation of the style, it acts as traditional cultural anchor in the city’s otherwise modern and often alternative-edged social scene. Despite having only existed since 1992, it has basically revived a periodically forgotten historical purpose and in a short space of time picked up quite a bit of character to boot.

Upon entering the Spiz cellar, you will discover a Germanic, Gothic and stately subterranean beer hall with its impressive mash tuns, giant barrels, cloistered ceiling and interesting display cabinets, acting as a mini-museum. You can order these straight from the bar which makes a nice change from having to wait for table service. The bar area is a fairly amusingly disorganised affair with servers handling money slightly grouchily and seemingly not fully comfortable with the concept of direct interaction with the general public. Alternatively you can wait for the waiting staff to make an appearance, and these matronly sorts are not to be messed around with. Apparently carrying heavy beers around all day gives you muscles!

Importantly too, Spiz brews what it sells, and yet freakishly it competes with two other breweries also on the square itself – talk about keeping a tradition alive! All Spiz beers are unfiltered and unpasteurised giving them a hard-to-match freshness, and their whole range from the light lagers, yeast beer and honey mead fall somewhere between okay, good and very good.

They are geared towards either hearty winter drinking or refreshing high volume summer drinking and although you may quibble here and there about not hitting a certain level of finesse, their drinks hit a good mark consistently. None of their beers will come close to breaking the bank, even by Polish standards although with it being central it’s not the cheapest place either.

 

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Conversely, there is a huge seating area outside, including an outside bar which on a sunny day becomes the ultimate drinking spot in the city, as one can recline with a beverage and enjoy the sights and sounds of a buzzing and vibrant Rynek. On my last visit the weather was gloriously sunny and although I’m not hugely taken by terrace drinking usually (as often you may as well be anywhere), it hardly gets any better than this. To your left, glance upward to the clock tower of the Ratusz, then straight ahead a line of magnificently restored and individually painted burgher houses, then to your right the join onto the Maly Rynek, which, through depth of field provides a fleeting illusion that this beauty and artistry stretches throughout the city. If you just keep sat there chugging away at the lovely beer, you can convince yourself it does.

A passion for preserved historical features isn’t just borne of an interest and preference in historical architecture, also a yearning for the atmosphere and simplicity of the time. Sat outside spectating on the various forms of life passing by does on a temporal level transport you to a previous era. The Rynek in Wroclaw is terrific and Spiz has the number one location for enjoying it.

If there wasn’t anything else to do in Wroclaw it would be enjoyable in itself to spend your entire time at Spiz. As can be seen by the various reviews, the positive experiences are well founded. However, Wroclaw is a terrific city as I highlighted here on my sister site Undiscovered Europe.

Yes, it’s entirely obvious as a destination and about as alternative as the use of the letter E in the word sentence. The service may not be all that, and it can be very busy at peak hours. Similarly, the TV screens downstairs in the beer hall garishly advertising info about its horrendous looking disco nights do detract from the experience. It needs to be very very good to overcome these – and it is.

Very few pubs will ever take such a short time to embed themselves in the landscape and cultural of such a big city, and they’ve done, by heavens they’ve done it.

  • Quality and/or choice of drinks – 8/10
  • Style and Decor – 8/10
  • Character, Atmosphere and/or Local Life – 9/10
  • Amenities, Events & Community – 8/10
  • Value for Money – 7/10
  • The Pub-Going Factor –  9/10

Update: Since my initial visit in 2016, I returned to Spiz again in 2018 and 2019 to find, thankfully, little had changed except for the addition of a craft beer to their roster, the APA.

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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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