Suggestions in a few places - Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, and Warsaw

Hi all,

I don’t normally post on here, but I figured what the hell, why not. I’ll be traveling from Madrid with a buddy next week and wondered if anyone had any suggestions, beer-related or otherwise, for the cities of Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, and Warsaw.

Cheers everyone and drink more good stuff.

-cam

Again, the most obvious answer is - look at the Places list, check the top rated bars/restaurants/stores and top rated brewpubs separately, the latter are generally lower on the lists than they should be because of lower selection scores, but IMO must visits, even if not great.

As for Budapest - Csak a Jó Sör is THE place. Essential, not going there is insanity really. Great place that doubles as a store and a bar. Armando carries a great selection there. For just bars - Éleszto is a great choice apparently, so should some others be, Monyo, Léhuto, Sörspecialista, maybe even Skanzenclub, and it’s cool to visit Szimpla Kavezo once you’re done with Csak A Jó Sör as it’s almost next door. Legenda’s outlet isn’t too far from there either. Hopfanatic’s outlet used to be, not sure if it still works. You should visit the Kaltenberg brewpub, nothing too special or exciting but good beers nonetheless. Etc. etc. etc.

Vienna - 1516 and 7 Stern are must visits. There’s a shitload of brewpubs in the town, explore them. As for regular pubs - Känguruh apparently.

Bratislava - well... hope Cuso, Gurthnar and others read this, my info’s not up to date perhaps.

I wonder if the policy of including every place that sellls any beer at all leads users to believe they need to make these posts to actually get the best information with so much clutter in the places section.

Maybe. Maybe not. Shit places are unlikely to get a lot of scores and float to the top, but 1 stupidly high rating might send a shit place above some solid ones, with more realistic ratings. The bigger problem is no ratings limit before they start to count, plenty of shit reviews boosting some places I guess.

It all boils down to the fact that some/a lot of people need to rate places more and that we need a limit to, say, 10, before they count (some kind of character limit too).

Too few users actually rate places. That, combined with the weighting system, makes it sometimes easier just to ask than wade through the muck.

Hey guys, Let me add to the discussion and also give some suggestions for Vienna (and also Bratislava).

My favorite place nowadays in Vienna is Lichtenthaler Bräu http://www.ratebeer.com/p/lichtenthaler-brau-vienna/27605/. Unfortunatly when they started out they got some bad reviews, so they are rated quite low. For me they definitly should in be Top 5 or at least Top 10 of Vienna.

I think a weighing system would be good, where older ratings (lets say 2 years or more) dont count as much as newer ratings. For example the top 2 places (1516 & 7stern) are good, but I would see both at 80 max. Anyway :P

So summary:
- Lichtenthaler Bräu - good beers (you can see the current list on there website, its changing every 2 week or so), they usually have 4-5 special styles + their regulars. Prices are very good, food prices are good too, not all the food is of equal quality, but its usually good. Big plus: its not so touristy as the other places. But its getting quite busy nowadays and its rather small so reserve ahead.

- 1516: beers are good, usually this place has way more tourists than austrians, service can be a bit hit and miss, they have between 0-4 speciality beers on tap (0 if you are unlucky). the food i had there always was crap, so i dont eat there anymore, but probably unlucky on my part. its very central located, so thats convenient. it usually gets very busy in the evening, so i recommend dropping in early or even in the afternoon.

- 7 stern: good beers too, some good and some not so interesting brews, they seem to be doing and ipa regularly now, which is a bit low on the hops but quite easy to drink. they also always have a speciality brew thats changing, beer list can be found online. last time i was there i had good service, but it can be hit and miss too, last time i was there in the afternoon, when they were none busy, so that could be a reason. it usually gets quite busy too, but the place is huge, so its usually not a problem to find a seat. gets touristy too.

känguruh: they have a huge list of belgian beers (i think about 150), dont bother with the austrian or german brews, they are served way too cold. i like the place, its rather small and gets quite busy in the evening but there is always space at the bar.

another place in vienna worth checking out is wieden bräu - they seem to be doing very good beers nowadays, but i have not been in a while.

there are some new good beer shops and also some more beer bars poping up. the new bars all mostly concentrate on foreigh beers and are ridiculously expensive. if you need some tips let me know.

for bratislava: richtar jakub is still the place to go. not much food though, but the beer selection (their own and international brews) are very good.
new place in town is le senk, the selection is rotating quite often, when i was there they didnt have any slovak beers, which was a bit of a let down. they had mostly czech beers on tap, and some belgian and english beers in bottles (nothing too exciting).
for food i kinda like slovak pubs, the locals dont like it though, but the place has athmosphere, dont go there for the beers though.
i also have been to this place:
http://www.ratebeer.com/p/starosloviensky-pivovar-vysoka-bratislava/37771/
good beers and good food, also good prices, but the athmosphere of the place is not so great.

and +1 for Csak a Jó Sör in Budapest :D

If you guys want to meet up in Vienna for a beer or want some other advices about the city (like sight seeing) shot me a message. What dates are you arriving? There are some beer festivals in Vienna and Bratislava over the next couple weeks.

As I said, more people should rate places, especially if they asked in a thread like this. Yeah, it’s a PITA sometimes, especially when you have a backlog, yeah, the scale is confusing and maybe takes getting used to for some, but helping people out and weighing in your opinion is much cooler than just ticking. Especially since other sites that rate bars/restaurants hardly draw a (craft) beer loving crowd, so the value of scores there is sometimes questionable. Public service. :)

Originally posted by Werckmeister
Hey guys, Let me add to the discussion and also give some suggestions for Vienna (and also Bratislava).

My favorite place nowadays in Vienna is Lichtenthaler Bräu http://www.ratebeer.com/p/lichtenthaler-brau-vienna/27605/. Unfortunatly when they started out they got some bad reviews, so they are rated quite low. For me they definitly should in be Top 5 or at least Top 10 of Vienna.

I think a weighing system would be good, where older ratings (lets say 2 years or more) dont count as much as newer ratings. For example the top 2 places (1516 & 7stern) are good, but I would see both at 80 max. Anyway :P
<br /

So for Bratislava, definetely Richtar Jakub, Stupavar beer pub in middle of town, Le Senk, I would go rather to Staromestianska pivoteka then to Starosloviensky, because there you can find tapped and bottled beers from small Slovak breweries. And if you have enough time Muzejny pivovar and Jama are very good options, but they are outside of town and are quite hidden. But if you BM me your travel plans I can guide you trough Bratislava and we can also arrange trip to Muzejny and Jama.
Vienna is perfectly covered by Wreckeister, I only would ad beer store Vienna for Austrian micro bottles.
Budapest of course Csak a Jó Sör is must, but you have there more places for beer http://www.ratebeer.com/places/city/budapest/0/94/ which can be worth for visit.

As an aside, I always use the Places section as a starting point. But I also usually post a thread to get some insider perspective. You never know, there could be a new place just opened, a place shut down, a beer event about to happen, locals having a meet-up.

That said, I visited Vienna and Bratislava a few years ago and the Places section served me pretty well. I didn’t go far outside the city center in either and still had plenty of great visits.

From what I remember, 1516 and 7 Stern were the ’must-visits’ in Vienna, while Richtar Jakub was my favorite in Bratislava. Make time for some longer visits to those places.

And I forgot to mention fo Bratislava Fabrika beer pub with Kaltenecker beers and 2 house beers.:)