Comments on: Tasting Notes: Two Polish Brews

By: Evan Rail

Evan Rail — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:45:06 +0000

Hey Martin, thanks for stopping by. So which Polish beers would you recommend we check out? Which traditional companies offer something different than mass production Eurobeer?

By: Martin

Martin — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 22:27:16 +0000

Beer in Poland is not bad, it’s just different. Poles prefer stronger beers (just like other alcohol).

But another problem is that almost all production of beer in Poland is in hands of just few big international companies. Especially SABMiller that owns Kompania Piwowarska and they have almost all important brands http://www.sabmiller.com/sabmiller.com/en_gb/Our+brands/Brand+information/Brands+by+country/Poland.htm

(They also brew Pilsner Urquell in Poznan - Poland! Believe me it’s not Urquell you know from Czech Republic )

Another big company in Poland is Grupa Zywiec SA. Unfortunately it’s also owned by German company (http://www.brauunion.at/) that has 59% in Zywiec and Harbin B.V. from Rotterdam (35%).

So, in fact we only have few really traditional Polish companies that can offer something different than mass production that you can tell only by label on the bottle.

By: Boak

Boak — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:16:40 +0000

Well, indeed, and it’s noticeable that the older generation seem to prefer vodka. But why should it have evolved that way?

You could pose a chicken and egg style question - did the Poles historically prefer vodka because the beer was bad, or is the beer bad because the Poles prefer vodka?

By: Pivero

Pivero — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 17:57:46 +0000

As far as I know beer in Poland,never had as deep cultural roots as it has in Germany or here. That is one of the reasons. I read an interview with Jan Šuran once where he said that Poland is not a beer country, like Russia, but that beer consumtion is increasing slowly. I think that is the case.

By: Boak

Boak — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 10:03:01 +0000

I’ve spent a lot of time in Poland, although for most of that I wasn’t a beer enthusiast, and I still eagerly pick up any Polish beers I see in London that I haven’t had.

So far, I agree pretty much wholeheartedly with Pivni Filosof - you don’t really get much flavour until you get strength, and even then it seems to be pretty one dimensional. A good exception to this is Kozlak, by Browar Witnica, which manages to be tasty and under 6%. That’s about the only one I can think of.

http://www.browar-witnica.pl/pages/en/products.php

I’ve also been to that brewpub in Wroclaw (probably also around 2003!) and I don’t remember much about the beer (wasn’t that bothered at the time) but it was an absolutely fabulous pub, I thought. They were giving out free “Chleb z smalcem” (bread and dripping).

A point that has always vexed me - given the quality of Czech and German beer, why is the Polish stuff consistently uninteresting? And the fact that a lot of modern-day Poland was Germany for so long - whatever the politics and history, you would expect there to be more of a beer heritage in places like Wroclaw (Breslau), Poznan (Posen) and of course Gdansk. I wondered whether it had anything to do with the fact anything or anyone German was forceably removed post WW2 - but then Ron Pattinson has pointed out that beer production was already on the decline well before WW2. I can’t find the link to where he said that. But he had some tables to prove it.

By: Pivero

Pivero — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:05:05 +0000

I travelled around Poland in 2003. I liked the country, specially Gdansk and Wroclaw, but was not too impressed with the beers, the only ones that seemed to have any sort of character or distinctive taste were the stronger ones (starting with 7%ABV maybe). The regular stuff always felt heavy on the stomach and rather thin in the mouth. I was also at a brewpub in Wroclaw, right at the main square, and back then, the beer there didn’t strike me as better than a regular lager you can get here at every corner.