Ed Turner visits Oxford’s Polish twin city of Wroclaw to check out the scene
I think I first visited Poland Inter-railing with my pal in 1997. We pottered around, he got fined for smoking outside Krakow station (in those days, everyone seemed to smoke so he was probably the unluckiest man in Poland), and we drank plenty of beer. It was horrible: quite strong, rather flavourless lagers. They have their place (I enjoyed them while cycling through the country in the years following), but really weren’t anything special. Think Zywiec, Tyskie, Lech (all available in small off-licenses throughout Oxford if anyone wants to relive their own Polish 1990s experience).
But by the time I visited the country again in early 2017, it was clear change was afoot. I was in Wrocław (Breslau in German) – since 2018 one of Oxford’s twin cities, and a true delight. The city has a remarkable history, with most of the population shifting after World War II – Germans headed west, and Poles from today’s Lviv resettled there. They rebuilt the old town after massive bomb damage and not a little sabotage from brick thieves: the Zajezdnia History Centre in an old tram depot documents this brilliantly. It really buzzes, with reputedly over 100,000 students, and a sizeable Ukrainian community (around 80,000 before Russia’s full-scale invasion, and now over 200,000).
But the beer scene is also quite tremendous. Quite simply, average lager’s stranglehold is gone, replaced by what is amongst the most dynamic beer scenes in Europe. Prices are fair: you can get indifferent lager for well under 10 złoty (or £2), but half a litre of craft beer is more likely to be in the £4 ballpark. An excellent starting point is Browar Stu Mostów (100 Bridges brewery – yes, Wrocław has lots of bridges), which has a terrific range of beers to be enjoyed next to the brew kettles, including Baltic porter, various IPAs, and even Schöps, the recreation of a honey-nutmeg beer that was enjoyed in 16th century Wrocław but had long died out. They have an outpost near the huge main square (Rynek) though the brewery atmosphere can’t be beaten.
Like Stu Mostow, just a shade out of town in a fancy modern new building (with deckchairs in its courtyard), Pinta offers IPA lovers and others a more than decent range of modern brews amongst people infinitely better-looking than myself.
My next stop is always Targowa, a cellar restaurant beneath Wrocław’s early 20th century market hall (in which the filled dumplings, pierogi, in the restaurant to the right as you walk in are warmly recommended); it also sports a terrace in summer, great for a spot of nerdy tram-watching. Targowa tends to have around 16 beers on, with a few offerings from outside the region (Czech Litovel often features, as it does elsewhere in the city). It has plenty of local choices, including fruity numbers from the Funky Fluid brewery in Warsaw (don’t let the name put you off).
If you wander over to Rynek, beer (equally fluid, less funky) is brewed by Piwnica Świdnicka in the cellars of the old town hall, and Spiz and Złoty Pies just a stone’s throw away on the main square have offerings that similarly appeal to hearty German tourists and locals alike. But we can be more adventurous: Marynka Piwo i Aperitivo is a cracking place. You walk in through a lobby (past an uninspiring-looking bar by the ring-road: “Surely Ed’s not made me trudge here just for that?”), go through an unprepossessing door and, ta-dah, you are in a cracking craft beer pub. It has a super hipster-friendly terrace (handlebar-moustache owners from Berlin will feel most at home), and a food truck which seems to deliver straight into the pub via a hatch in the winter. Tasting selections (and tasters!) are available from the friendly, English-speaking bar staff.
Before getting too comfortable but keeping with the hipster theme, you could wander over to Szynkarnia, on a street with seemingly endless opportunities for trendy eats. They have a wide range of foods sourced locally (given a lot of the craft beers are north of 6% ABV, a deep-fried cheese bap is positively medicinal). At the time of writing, the 16 beers on tap included an oat cream APA from Trzebnica, a coffee and vanilla milk stout from Poręba, a “pastry sour” (which apparently offers raspberry, coffee and cocoa brownie flavours), and, thank goodness, a Polish lager to cleanse the palate.
Just around the corner there’s AleBrower, an outpost of one of the leading lights of Poland’s craft beer movement coming from the north. It offers counter service of a decent range of beers, perhaps a shade more mainstream than some of those enjoyed around the corner: think the Crazy Mike Double IPA (a “must” for anyone who knows Oxford’s 2024-25 Lord Mayor), a rather nice, somewhat hoppy Rowing Jack IPA, and Smoky Joe, apparently the first peated stout in Poland, matured in whisky barrels.
At this point, things might be getting hazy, in which case a trip to Kontynuacja with its 25 taps is probably ill-advised (in truth, the lights are bright and the atmosphere might not be busting, but you won’t much care by that point). Nearby is the 4Hops pub, yet another multi-tap with a cycle theme, though I’d seriously advise against hopping on a bike after a session there. Still going strong? Best visit a doctor, or more properly Doctor’s Bar, owned by the local Doctor Brew brewery.
It’s unlikely you are still standing, but if you are, stumbling down the stairs to the Communist retro disco beneath the restaurant PRL on the main square is fun for afficionados of Polish pop (experiences with the beer have been mixed, but it’s hard to apportion blame in the circumstances). Or there’s the stunning courtyard disco, complete with electric violin (nope, that’s not a typo) at Café Mañana, or the studenty vibe and eclectic décor of long-running Art Nouveau Kalambur (which apparently used a cunning ruse to keep going when the Communist regime wanted it gone). And if you arrive or depart from Wrocław’s splendid main station, it can’t hurt to check out the row of grungy bars under the arches on Wojciecha Bogusławskiego.
A couple of final observations. For anyone other than the most hardened craft beer nerd, the Polish scene maybe sometimes feel it tries a shade too hard: I don’t mind trying a beer with brownie or beetroot, but at some point you do just fancy an up and down, simple cold one. Wrocław can help with that too: the city’s uncomplicated internationalism (a leading local politician told me he was glad when German speakers called the city “Breslau”, as it was part of its and their heritage) means that there’s just nothing wrong with going into one of the excellent Czech pubs. Česká (with Pilsner Urquell) or Bernard (serving the beer of the same name), or the tiny and friendly Paka Pub can all oblige.
Wrocław really is a true delight. My focus here has been on the beer scene, but there is plenty more to discover (the In Your Pocket guide being warmly recommended). It’s an open, friendly place, even dotted with gnomes (part of a good-natured, left-field protest against Communism). Rather fittingly, Wrocław gave one to Oxford to mark the twinning and it resides in the Covered Market, just a hop, skip and a stumble away from Tap Social and Teardrop. If you enjoy a quiet pint and get the chance, give it a whirl.