Balkan in October

Beer Travel
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I am looking for recommendations for a multi city trip to Balkan in October.

I have off course researched the places section, but would appreciate any advice regarding these 5 cities:

Belgrade (5-6)

Sarajevo (7)

Sofia (8-10)

Plovdiv

Bucuresti (11-12)

Brewpubs, places not to miss and so on. For Sofia and Bucuresti we are also interested in places out of town, we are looking for a day trip to Plovdiv. Any recommendations or thought are most welcome

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I travelled to all these places (except Plovdiv) last year, so here’s some hopefully up-to-date advice. I’m sure @marko could chime in as well.

Belgrade

  • Majstor za Pivo: bar/bottle shop, with a really good selection. Mandatory stop.
  • Miner’s Pub: basement bar – they had tons from Dogma when I was there. No flights, but as per my review, if you ask insistently, they might work something out.
  • Endorfin: fancy place, but reasonably priced, and they had a good taplist when I was there (lots from Kabinet).
  • Samo Pivo: didn’t have good service here, and they don’t make it easy to tick, but the taplist and location are good, with a huge patio.

Sarajevo

Not much craft beer in this city, and difficult if you want to tick a lot in only one day. If you’re arriving in Sarajevo by bus from Belgrade, and really can only do 1 night here, you’re really going to be pressed for time, so…:

  • Gastro Pub Vučko: the place to come for Bosnian beers, but only in bottles.

  • Pivnica Semizburg: out of the way, but a quick and cheap taxi ride away from the centre – I recall there being a taxi area nearby for when you want to leave also. They did flights. Lots of the beer was infected when I was there, but maybe they’ve cleaned it up by now? If you just want to stay in the centre, this might be too much a detour.

  • Pivnica HS: uninteresting beer, but the place is awesome – massive, old school beer hall with very cheap beer.

Unless you’re really a filthy ticker (like me), skip The Brew Pub – everything was infected when I was there and it seems to be the way it’s been for a while. They do flights though.

Sofia

Bulgaria doesn’t have much of a craft scene, and I struggled to find local stuff:

  • Kanaal: easily the best bar, but it’s all imports and a pretty impressive list when I visited.
  • 100 Beers (100 Бири): easily the best bottle shop. Worth spending some time to peruse here, especially if you want locals, though the imports are good too.

Bucharest

  • Mikkeller Bar really is worth visiting. From memory, it was about 10 RON to Uber out there from the centre. Beautiful spot and killer taplist, but not so ticker-friendly.
  • Fabrica De Bere Bună / Zăganu Bar is very ticker-friendly; they do decently priced flights and it’s a nice place to chill. Zaganu beer is not the best, though they had some nice guest taps when I was there.
  • La 100 de Beri is in the Old Town and is awesome for bottles, not so much for draught. I found a lot of the top-rated Romanian imperial stouts here.
  • I didn’t have the best experiences at Beer O’Clock (especially #2), so I wouldn’t prioritize them.

Hope that helps!

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Thank you very much for this super useful info, these will go into our planning for sure.
We will have almost a full day in Sarajevo, we are more interested in places, not so much in ticking lots of beer for numbers only
:beers:

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For Belgrade I would add Krafter as one stop. Nice small place with a great changing taplist and friendly staff. Above-mentioned Miners has extremely nice staff, unfortunately the bar itself is underground and not so pleasant in my opinion. Samo Pivo, staff can be rude but list is good and the patio is nice to sit in and still in October the weather in Belgrade is usually nice!

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