Bishkek

Beer Travel
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Does anyone have any up to date intel on Bishkek? I last visited in 2016 and things have changed dramatically since then with Brewster and Save the Ales opening up.

What is the best supermarket to hit for macro bottles and other regional ticks? Looks like it should be easy enough to find a Kazakhstan tick but does anyone know if other Central Asian beers are available anywhere?

Cheers!

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Ah, I would have been able to help you with this if my trip to Bishkek this summer hadn’t fallen through.

I read a Russian article a while back about Uzbek beer being available in Bishkek (mainly because of a lack of effort in promoting domestic beers and also possibly due to the sizeable Uzbek population), but I don’t know if that’s still the case. As for the other CA countries, it seems rather doubtful.

Russian craft should definitely be available.

Let us know how you get on.

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Thanks, I’m not 100% sure if I’ll make it back myself yet but doesn’t hurt to do some research!

I’ve ticked Uzbekistan before but will keep an eye out for some friends, would be good to grab a bottle or two if I can. From checking Untappd listings it looks like Kazakh ticks are not too difficult to find but as I won’t have a huge amount of time I can’t be running all over town. I figure Tajikistan/Turkmenistan would be a bit of an ask anyway.

Will certainly report back if I do make it.

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Bump

I finally got round to visiting Bishkek this March.

Observations:

Bishkek now has three craft breweries across four locations:

  • Brewster
  • Tengri (two locations, their beers were the probably highlight of the trip for me)
  • Save the Ales

Supermarkets are all very bad for beer. In nearly all the shops I checked the Kyrgyz beers were litre+ PET bottles. I focused on drinking craft instead of going of a rampage buying litre bottles of pale lager/strong lager just for the tick.

As for the other 'stans, well the best I could find was four or five new Kazakh beers in supermarkets/smaller shops. Tajikistan (the last post-Soviet country tick I need, excluding South Ossetia) and Turkmenistan look impossible without actually visiting.

One bar (named Craft, but with no craft beer, haha) had Shymkent pilsner from Kazakhstan, which I didn’t see anywhere else in town.

Most bars open at around 6 pm.

Overall the craft places were very popular, except Save the Ales, but that’s maybe because I visited it early. The beers and the service didn’t wow me there, anyway.

There are one or two regional Kyrgyz breweries out there that I didn’t enter into RateBeer because my trip wasn’t long enough to try them, although they are the usual pale lager, dark lager, wheat beer set-up and could only be found at the typical post-Soviet beer filling places.

On the way out, Bishkek airport has a couple of macros that are hard to find elsewhere. Also it was probably the cheapest airport beer ever for me.

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