Category: Poland

  • Warsaw – Warsaw Beer Festival (Browar Sarabanda)

    Warsaw – Warsaw Beer Festival (Browar Sarabanda)

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    Next up for me at Warsaw Beer Festival was Browar Sarabanda, who I haven’t encountered before but they had some interesting looking beers. The service was immediate, friendly and warm, they seemed keen to engage about their options that they had. Their tasting set changes during the festival, but it’s clearly visible on the left-hand side.

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    Ignoring their numbering, from back left to back right and then front left to front right:

    (i) Serenity – a very hoppy little arrangement. A little rough and ready, but there’s always a place in life for a beer like that. As long as it’s not rough like the bloody awful generic lagers are….

    (ii) Black Celebration #3 – this isn’t holding back. Rich, decadent, heavy and maybe a bit brutal. Chocolate and coffee flavours, but subtle this is not. An adult’s beer.

    (iii) Currant the Black & Red – lots of berry flavour going on here. A nice level of sourness, very agreeable. And premiered at this beer festival 🙂

    (iv) Mango Passion Delight – not as rich as other mango pastry sours that I’ve had before. It’s a bit tart to be honest, but there’s a nice lingering mango flavour. There’s a bit of lime or similar in there as well.

    (v) Tantalus #2 – very heavy grapefruit flavour from the hops, it’s a bit thin and not one of my favourites, but still a credible beer.

    (vi) Cofeecolus – I can’t recall having had a coffee IPA before so marks for innovation here as I thought it worked well.

    This is another brewery that I was surprised and delighted by, so I’ll look out for their beers in the future.

  • Warsaw – Warsaw Beer Festival (Funky Fluid 1/3)

    Warsaw – Warsaw Beer Festival (Funky Fluid 1/3)

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    As far as I’m concerned, Funky Fluid are the best brewer in Europe at the moment and thanks to them for giving me stickers so I can show that love. There are three parts to this Funky Fluid love as the beer festival is taking place over three days and I’ll be there every day at their stall.

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    This is actually day two, but I don’t think anyone will worry that I’ve posted the days the wrong way around. Just looking at these tempting options, let alone the 2024 Bourbon County Stout.

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    This is the Gelato XTREME : Tropical Shake from Funky Fluid, an 8% sour, and it’s made of 40% fruit which pushes beer to its absolute limits. It’s an 8% ABV and punchy in taste but not boozy, like an adult fruit juice. Innovative, packed with mango and verging on perfection once again.

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    This is the Gelato White Fluff from Funky Fluid and it’s deeply clever, a mixture of sweet and sour. There are tastes of marshmallows alongside peaches and pears. Smooth, decadent and innovative.

    I love innovation in beers and Funky Fluid merrily push at this, in a similar way to how Vault City play about at the margins. All very lovely.

  • Warsaw – Warsaw Beer Festival (Miastolas Brewery)

    Warsaw – Warsaw Beer Festival (Miastolas Brewery)

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    This is a brewery that I haven’t come across before, but they had some interesting sounding beers so I thought that I’d get a flight to experience their offerings. The service at the bar was personable, engaging and I liked that they suggested an order to drink the beers in which I always think shows an attention to detail.

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    OK, from front left to front right, and then back left to back right.

    (i) Tańczący Wilk – a clean and malty beer with a bitter ending. Not my favourite beer style, but decent.

    (ii) Dobry Wiewiór – a very dry stout, roasty with chocolate notes.

    (iii) Kot Browarny – a really decent DIPA, hazy, a little dank, tropical, stonefruit and very agreeable.

    (iv) Pachnący Motyl – you have to like lavender to enjoy this, it’s effectively an IPA with a heap of lavender. Luckily, I liked it.

    (v) Cherry Wild Ale – I love sours, but I can find wild ales a little bit too much sometimes. However, this one wasn’t overly sour and it had lingering flavours of cherries and it didn’t have a chemical edge.

    (vi) Coconut and Vanilla Imperial Baltic Porter – this was very boozy, thick and rich. Lots of coconut and vanilla flavour, a big ABV (10.4%) and a very drinkable beer. Not perfectly smooth as it was so punchy, but I quickly forgave that.

    All told, I was very impressed with this little selection, I’ll look out for the brewery in future

  • Warsaw – Warsaw Beer Festival (Goose Island)

    Warsaw – Warsaw Beer Festival (Goose Island)

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    I accept that I might need to get out more, but this is just magical, a combination of my two favourite breweries in the world, Funky Fluid and Goose Island. I’ve visited the Goose Island taproom in Chicago and there’s no shortage of posts on this blog about the outstanding Goose Island outlet in Shoreditch before it closed. One of their highlights, brewed in Chicago, is the annual Bourbon County Stout and I thought I’d be missing out as I hardly dare visit the US at the moment and there’s now no UK outlet of this marvellous beer. However, I was surprised and delighted to see that Funky Fluid have brought some of this excellent beer to Warsaw Beer Festival.

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    This is possibly the best beer in the world, or at least, it’s up there. It’s the 2024 edition of Bourbon County Stout and it weighs in at a mighty 14.7%. In terms of the taste, this is incredible, it’s smooth and hides its booziness with some ease. There’s the flavour from the Bourbon barrels and there’s chocolate, cherry, coffee, fudge and vanilla going on there, tastes almost competing with each other. The maturity of this beer is incredible and it has travelled well, but these rich and decadent stouts don’t struggle with that. Outstanding, it’s a glorious chaos of tastes, it’s rowdy and aggressive, but yet calm and settled.

    It might be possible to read between the lines and note that I liked this.

  • Warsaw – Metro System (Visiting Every Station)

    Warsaw – Metro System (Visiting Every Station)

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    I obviously need a new project since I only have about 18 ongoing ones….. It’s not a great secret that I have a moderate obsession with trains, metros and trams, although coaches and buses usually annoy me, so I can be picky rather than randomly loving all forms of public transport. The evolution of metro systems also intrigues me, I’ve been on a couple of systems in China which were expanding at an insane rate, and on systems which don’t seem to be getting bigger any time soon.

    The Warsaw Metro system (Metro Warszawskie) is the only rapid transit system in Poland and it’s of a manageable size as they only have two lines. After many failed starts to the project, the first section didn’t open until 1995 and a second line has since opened. The first line goes from north to south and is the M1 (the blue line) and the second line goes from east to west and is the M2 (the red line). They cross at just one place, Świętokrzyska, and there are plans to extend the lines and also to open new lines.

    So my intention here is to cause mass excitement for my two loyal blog readers with no end of posts about the history of the network, but I’m also going to visit every metro station and try and find something interesting to write about all of them. To check this will sufficiently interest me, I’ve already visited eight of the metro stations and I haven’t lost engagement yet, so I think it’s safe to start posting this. I’m starting with the M2 line, but to get us going, here is a list of all of the stations. I’ll eventually hopefully link to all of them. And, yes, I should probably get out more if I think metro systems are this exciting, but there we go…. I’m not saying this will be fascinating, but it’ll keep me sort of quiet for a little while.

    OK, given all of that, here is a list of the currently operational stations on the Warsaw Metro system, based on the network status since the last openings in September 2022, grouped by line:

    M1 Line (North-South) – 21 stations

    • A01 Kabaty
    • A02 Natolin
    • A03 Imielin
    • A04 Stokłosy
    • A05 Ursynów
    • A06 Służew
    • A07 Wilanowska
    • A08 Wierzbno
    • A09 Racławicka
    • A10 Pole Mokotowskie
    • A11 Politechnika
    • A13 Centrum
    • A14 Świętokrzyska
    • A15 Ratusz Arsenał
    • A17 Dworzec Gdański
    • A18 Plac Wilsona
    • A19 Marymont
    • A20 Słodowiec
    • A21 Stare Bielany
    • A22 Wawrzyszew
    • A23 Młociny  

    M2 Line (East-West) – 18 stations

  • Warsaw – Hopito Parkingowa

    Warsaw – Hopito Parkingowa

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    This is one of two Hopito outlets in Warsaw and this is their newer venue, which I usually always visit when I come to the city. The service is always personable and efficient, it’s a comfortable and on-trend atmosphere as well. The venue’s craft beer list is available at https://hopito.ontap.pl/. There are usually twenty-one taps available with a well curated range of beers, including sours, porters and some rarer beer styles. The team members are knowledgeable, keen to engage and willing to offer samples. I’m not entirely sure why it’s named as Parkingowa, but that’s the name they use on Untappd and so that’s what we’re using here, although I’m sure there are better things to name it than after car parking. It’s located on ul. Żurawia and it’s won numerous awards over the last couple of years.

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    I haven’t had a flight here before, but there were a number of tempting options (including from my favourite brewery, Funky Fluid) and so I couldn’t choose just one. The flight was branded with the Hopito logo, as were the individual glasses.

    The beers, from left to right, are:

    Gelato : Royal Orange from Funky Fluid and I wish that all orange juice tasted like this. It was a smooth beer with a suitable level of sourness, with flavours of mango and peach in addition to the orange.

    Crisis Identity from Browar Monsters, like a sweet, malty chocolate delight, with a rather decent lingering flavour.

    Born in the USA from Funky Fluid, clean, light and tropical. A credible beer, although I think that Funky Fluid’s strengths lie elsewhere.

    Mochi Green – Kiwi, Banana & Mochi from Magic Road. A rather lovely pastry sour, with the kiwi and banana being evident and it’s a nice and smooth beer.

    The Last Call from Harpagan, an oaty and roasty beer.

    This was an interesting selection of beers, it’s always a delight to see what they have here.

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    This is the n’duja pizza and it’s the first time I can recall having burrata on a pizza and it was quite marvellous. The heat from the n’duja was in contrast to the creaminess of the burrata, with the base having a richness of flavour and suitable leopard spotting. The pizza is the equivalent of less than £10 and for the quality, I thought that was a bargain, even though it’s one of their most expensive options. Decadent and delicious, I might come back and have this pizza option again at some point later in the year. It would be hard to eat this without a knife and fork, it’s something of a creamy and saucy delight.

    There’s quite an artistic feel to the interior and although it was quiet when I visited in the late afternoon, it gets busy in the evenings and on weekends. The toilets are a little challenging to get in given the arrangement of their beer barrels, but where there’s a will then there’s a way. The atmosphere is informal and relaxed, with customers needing to order their food and drink at the bar. The venue’s pizza oven is visible behind the bar to add to the authenticity of the whole arrangement.

    The venue is centrally located and under 100 metres from one of my favourite hotels, the Novotel, although that’s been a little pricier than other options recently so I have stayed there for a couple of years. I will definitely be coming here again, it’s in my opinion one of the best craft beer bars in Warsaw with an excellent selection of craft beer and some delightful pizza.

  • Wrocław – National Museum in Wrocław (St. Mary Magdalene’s Church by Adelbert Woelfl)

    Wrocław – National Museum in Wrocław (St. Mary Magdalene’s Church by Adelbert Woelfl)

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    This painting is in the collections of the National Museum in Wrocław and was painted by Adelbert Woelfl (1823-1896) in 1867. Woelfl was the best known artist of landscapes in Breslau, the German name for the city, and he was himself German having been born in Münsterberg (now known as Ziębice and part of Poland since 1945). It depicts St. Mary Magdalene’s Church which had been where the first Lutheran services had been held in the city in the early sixteenth century and it remained a Protestant church until the end of the Second World War, when it was restored to the Catholic tradition. I rather like the painting, it’s realistic and there’s a sense of reality about the individuals going about their business.

    Here’s what the same view looks like now. The church was badly damaged during the Second World War and was substantially rebuilt, but they’ve been faithful (if you excuse the pun) to the original design, although the towers have been changed somewhat.

    This is what fascinates me though, we have a German painter painting a German church in what was Germany. Everything is still there today, but everything has changed.

  • Wrocław – National Museum in Wrocław (St. Martin from St. Martin’s Church)

    Wrocław – National Museum in Wrocław (St. Martin from St. Martin’s Church)

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    This wooden polychrome sculpture is in the collections of the National Museum in Wrocław and depicts St. Martin of Tours (336AD – 397AD) who was known for cutting his cloak in two to give warmth to a beggar. Very benevolent, although I wonder why he didn’t give him the whole thing, but there we go. As with all these things, some of the cloak that Martin kept survived and became relics likely dotted around numerous locations. The most important one was originally at Marmoutier Abbey and there were priests put in charge of looking after the holy cloak relic and the head priest of this operation became known as the cappellanu. Eventually, all priests who went to serve the military became known as cappellani, which in English became the word chaplain and that was all named after this relic.

    Anyway, I digress. This sculpture was likely made in a workshop in Wrocław and it has been dated to around 1490. It was located at St. Martin’s Church, the only survived building from the former Piast’s castle in Wrocław. Before the Second World War, this was where the Polish people in the German city would have gone for services, but the building was damaged during the conflict. The sculpture is in relatively very good condition and a fair chunk of the paint has remained. And the moral of the story is that if you give half of your coat to a beggar, then you too could maybe have your own church named after you in the future and perhaps a word named after you as well.

  • Wrocław – National Museum in Wrocław (Pieta from St. Vincent’s Church)

    Wrocław – National Museum in Wrocław (Pieta from St. Vincent’s Church)

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    This pietà is in the collections of the National Museum in Wrocław and it was made in the area, likely in around 1420. It’s a depiction of dead Jesus following the crucifixion, designed to have emotional intensity and evidently from the Gothic tradition. It’s a medieval polychrome wooden statue, although the colours have rather faded away over the centuries. I am fascinated by these depictions, not because they’re particularly cheerful, but because I can try and imagine the thousands of people in the medieval period who would have looked at them and maybe inspired by them.

    It was originally located in St. James’s Church which was founded in around 1240 as a Romanesque church, although it underwent significant Gothic reconstruction in the 14th and 15th centuries. In 1530, after the displaced Premonstratensians took the church over when the Franciscans were kicked out, it was rededicated to St. Vincent of Saragossa which was their patron saint of the monastery that they’d been thrown out of. The building was badly damaged during the Second World War, including the Hochberg Chapel where this statue had been located. The chapel has now been reconstructed and they’ve placed a copy of this statue in there, with the main Cathedral (as it now is) being the home of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. I’m not sure whether this statue was recovered after the war from the damaged church, or whether it was moved earlier on to protect it, but it’s something of a survivor.

    I also rather like that when this statue was originally placed here, the church was in Poland state (the Piast dynasty), although it then came under the control of the Kingdom of Bohemia, then the Habsburg Monarchy, then the Prussian Empire, then the German Empire, then the Weimar Republic, then Nazi Germany and only in 1945 did it return to Poland again.

  • Wrocław – The Gnomes of Wrocław (B01 : Panoramist)

    Wrocław – The Gnomes of Wrocław (B01 : Panoramist)

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    This gnome of Wrocław is located on the windowsill of the Panorama Racławicka at ul. Purkyniego 11, with more of this important museum coming in a future post…. (oh, the anticipation of it all!) This gallery has the monumental panoramic painting depicting the Battle of Racławice, hence the brave gnome on a horse.