Now recognized by those ‘in the know’ as one of Europe’s top craft beer events, the soaring reputation of the Warsaw Beer Festival which this year runs from October 17-19 has directly mirrored that of the country’s own brewing sector, moving upwards in tandem and at meteoric pace.
How this all came to pass, drinkers have history to thank. Emasculated by the state-controlled economy, the few small-scale breweries that weren’t left extinct by Communism found themselves facing a new threat following the free-market transformation - soon swallowed or squeezed out by the corporate brewing giants, Poland’s small-scale brewers were left wandering an empty wasteland of mainstream tastes.
The bad news, however, would not last forever. Inspired by global trends, and encouraged by the growing band of homebrewing enthusiasts, 2011 saw the tapping of the country’s first craft beer, an American-style IPA from a brewery named Pinta. Met with acclaim by a quality-starved public, it was this beer that opened the floodgates. There would be no looking back.
Lacking the tradition that bridled powerhouse beer cultures such as those found in Germany, Belgium, and the Czech Republic, Poland’s new breed of enthusiasts had a fresh slate to work from. With no rulebook to follow or heritage to respect, the craft breweries that emerged were guided only by their own sense of adventure.
“Polish brewers love to experiment,” Paweł Leszczyński, the beer festival’s founder, tells TVP World. “We experiment with everything, and you don’t find that on more traditional markets. That’s something that beer geeks are looking for: they’re after new tastes, new aromas. But more to the point, our experimentation is now at a very high level and has become something to envy.”
Just how radical the new wave has been is evidenced by flicking through the festival’s copious beer list.
Presenting 1,300 beers from around 65 breweries, several border on the seemingly absurd: a ‘Philly juicy sour’ brewed with ginger, pineapple, lemon and lime; coffee mead aged in a cellar for four years; and ‘iced strong ale’ with an oriental, tobacco blend mixture.
This, though, just hints at the level of maverick experimentation. Of the headline-makers, AleBrowar - one of the earliest pioneers to make waves on the Polish market - are debuting Grasshopper, an American pale ale brewed with crickets.
“Operating on the craft market, we’re constantly looking for new flavors and unusual combinations,” says AleBrowar’s Arkadiusz Wenta. “We decided to add crickets to the mash and brewing tun and found that because they smell like hazelnuts they added a nutty accent.”
While AleBrowar are considered a veteran in Polish craft circles, newer to the market are Funky Fluid - though founded in 2018, their name has now become synonymous with rebel swigs ever since they splashed down with a cult range of ice-cream inspired ‘gelato’ beers.
“Without experiments Funky Fluid would not exist,” Grzegorz Korcz, the brewery’s creative director, tells TVP World. “Running a brewery is, of course, a ton of daily work, but it's coming up with new recipes, flavor combinations, adjuncts, and drawing inspiration from things like cuisine, that brings us the most fun. We try to keep it playful because we love discovering new tastes and combos ourselves, and we can see that our customers expect that from us too.”
Always looking to bend or even break through the boundaries, Funky Fluid’s latest star offer includes a sour tomato gose brewed with the addition of habanero chocolate peppers. “We think it’s a unique beer,” says Korcz, without any hint of understatement.
“We brewed it together with our friends from the Warsaw pub White Crow, and based it on their idea. We’ve got everyone used to fruity beers, so this time we thought we’d try something at the other end of the extreme - a veggie beer loaded with tons of tomatoes, garlic and liquid smoke.”
But although one-upmanship in the experimentation stakes has become commonplace in the brewing sector, it has not come at the cost of quality. “Every beer you see at the festival is going to be good,” says Leszczyński. “Word travels fast, so the breweries that are here simply wouldn’t dare sell anything that falls under par.”
Away from the noisy headline acts, the craft brewing sector has also embraced other innovations. “You can see breweries experimenting with different yeast producers and malting houses,” says Leszczyński. “New yeasts and malts are now available in Poland, so the experiments are starting - this year, we’ve got one Polish brewery that’s produced a traditional Finnish Sahti beer, and another that used malted fava beans.”
These aren’t the only surprises in store for drinkers. “There’s been a massive lean towards non-alcoholic beer,” says Leszczyński. “I remember when we used to have about three non-alcoholic beers, but now 40 breweries are bringing non-alcoholic choices to the festival - the scale is unprecedented.” As is the quality.
“The quality has leaped in non-alcoholic beers, and Poland’s been noticed,” says Leszczyński. “Browar Recraft from Świętochłowice in the south of Poland won the competition for the best non-alcoholic beer at a festival in Japan, and taken as a whole Poland was the best-performing country in this category.”
These advances have been quick and unrelenting and driven from bottom-up - in some instances, by the smallest breweries in the country. “We love giving space to the so-called nano breweries,” says Leszczyński. Formally defined as producers of less than 15,000 kegs per annum, it is these under-the-radar breweries that the beer geeks love most.
“One of our guests is Katowice’s Starcraft brewery, who only brew 200 liters per batch,” says Leszczyński. “These are unique beers, and they can get away with experimenting with whatever they want as it’s not hard to sell such a small amount - their variety, including non-alcoholic, is overwhelming.”
It’s not all about the new, however. “As a country, we’re getting better and better at brewing traditional beers,” says Leszczyński. “We’re surrounded by countries with big beer traditions, and we’ve watched them carefully so we are learning from the best. In many respects, we’ve used them as a base for our own new brewing tradition.”
The results, as craft drinkers can attest, have made Poland’s beer famine a long, distant memory.
