You might think I spend all my time in pubs from my trip reports out of Gdansk and Krakow, Poland. Of course, I don’t. I go back to my hotel each night for sleep.
Seriously though, I like European lager beer and in Poland the beer is cheaper than buying a bottle of water in many pubs and restaurants.
Here is our June trip to Barcelona and Gdansk, Poland in beer photos. Krakow needs its own beer post.
Estrella Damm one liter beer for $5 at Barcelona BCN Airport. Looks like I missed the photo ops from two other pubs.
Piwo in Poland
Lomza beer at Warsaw Airport WAW. I purchased two cold beers from a convenience store in the terminal for about 75 cents each after check-in for our Ryanair flight and before going through security. When Kelley was on her last sip, two airport security police walked by and gave us a finger wag for drinking on the bench. I guess we would have been okay if we were seated at the one table outside the market, but an American was stationed there on his laptop, with no store purchases in sight.
Very cool to find the Warsaw Airport Preludium Executive Lounge right next to our Ryanair gate.
Lech beer is one of my favorite Polish beers.
Poland Craft Beer
American style craft beer is becoming more prevalent in central European countries.
Directly across from Radisson Blu Gdansk is nice fine dining at Restaurant Tawerna and Cathead, a good place for craft beer. We gave the place a try, but we really do not enjoy highly hopped craft beers.
 
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My travel hobby in the 80s and 90s was visiting craft breweries all around the USA. I drank a lot of great beers and a lot of crap beers in microbreweries.
My body developed a dislike for Cascade Hops after 20 years of craft brew. Their high acidity started afflicting my gut. European Noble Hop varietals are far less acidic.
Amsterdam Bar Gdansk.
We sat outside at the Amsterdam Bar patio cafe due to the Lech umbrellas over the tables. Turned out they did not sell Lech beer, while the people next to us dining at Pyra bar were drinking Lech beer under patio umbrellas of a different brand. Pyra Bar became one of our dining and drinking destinations in Gdansk for cheap potato dishes and 10 zloty Lech beer.
There were 20 different beers at Amsterdam Bar. Looks like I chose Raciborski Pils as my first beer in Gdansk, a beer I had never tasted before.
Beer Street Gdansk
ul. Piwna is literally beer street Gdansk. This is the historical brewery street in the city and there are a dozen pubs on a short block in the main tourist zone of the city.
Zwierzynich beer at ul. Piwna pub in GdanskÂ
Can’t say I remember the name of the pub or the beer taste, but I certainly recall the patio table view of Piwna Street. I was amused watching a young blonde woman trying to engage any single man or group of men walking along the road.
I knew the score. In Krakow, the cute young women carry a pink umbrella. In Wroclaw, a little cutie cornered me last January and did not stop pestering me to go to a bar with her until I firmly responded no.
Cat’s Meow – Wroclaw predatory Polish cutie on a Saturday night
The woman on beer street did not attract any interested men as we drank our beer. The next day we walked down a perpendicular street to ul. Piwna and noticed a strip club, probably less than 100 meters from where the woman was soliciting the guys.
Tyskie is the largest selling brand of beer in Poland. Most pubs have either Tyskie or Zywiec.
These beer tanks were in a pub beneath the Golden Gate in Gdansk. We were drinking upstairs and eventually I realized people were going downstairs and not returning. On a trip to the toilet I saw there was another bar downstairs in the cellar. In one of the rooms were a violin and guitar player making great music. We finished our beers downstairs.
Old Gdansk Pub Sweet Home Alabama with Ukrainian beer
Around 10pm at night on Corpus Christie, a national holiday in Poland, we found ourselves in Old Gdansk Pub listening to a guitar player. I drank my first ever beer from Ukraine.
My head went into overload when the guitar player started strumming Sweet Home Alabama and the dozen or so patrons, all Poles from the sound of conversations I heard, started singing the refrain. Rock music is global.
Like most European beer brands, Carlsberg, Heineken or Anheuser-Busch InBev owns most every brand.
Kasztelan and Okocim are two brands owned by Carlsberg.
Lech and Tyskie are AB-InBev brands. Zywiec and Warka are majority owned by Heineken.
These are the most common draught beers in Poland.
Warka 500 ml, 9.50 zloty, Gdansk
Two free pints of Warka on our way out of Gdansk were courtesy of our taxi driver. He got pissed off at me on our way from Radisson Blu Gdansk to the train station when I refused to let him drive us to Gdansk GDN Airport for 70 zloty ($19 USD). The fare to the train station was 22 zloty ($6 USD). Â The taxi driver refused to take payment and drove away without a word.
We paid 18 zloty for a couple of pints of Warka near the train station before boarding the train to the airport.
Before leaving Gdansk Airport, I dropped into the airport lounge by our LOT Polish gate for the flight to Krakow. This turned out to be an educational visit for a couple of reasons.
First, the beer.
Piwo Brovarnia Jasne Pale Lager
Piwo Brovarnia is a Gdansk Brewery located across from Granary Island. Less than ten minutes walk from Dluga Targ/Long Street Market square, the main city center tourist zone across the Motlawa River. I walked right by the brewery along the Gdansk Marina one afternoon, but I did not snap a photo. This is a photo I snapped from Gdansk Marina near the brewery looking to the embankment on the other side of the river, Gdansk’s main tourist thoroughfare to ul. Dluga/Long Street.
Secondly, Brovarnia Gdansk is also part of Hotel Gdansk, a 5-star boutique hotel and one of the top 10 hotels in Gdansk by Tripadvisor reviews. Starting rates at Hotel Gdansk are about $125 to $200 per night during summer season, but drop down to around $100 in winter season. Or the Presidential Suite for $400 in winter.
Sign up for their newsletter for a 10% discount. That savings will buy a few beers at the hotel.
