I won’t linger too long on this, as I’ve visited before and anyone interested can read about that here. The welcome here was, once again, very friendly and they enthused positively about their beers. I love the presentation of their beer boards, it just feels exciting. I came here after the third day of the Warsaw Beer Festival, to get a bar vibe at least once in the weekend.
The pizza was delicious, but it’s the beer that particularly surprised and delighted me here. It’s the Carrot Fever pastry sour from Browar Stu Mostów and I visited their taproom in Wrocław a few months ago. This, yet again, shows how healthy beer can be, it’s full of carrots and mango with a creamy texture. It’s brewed in collaboration with Mikkeller, so I probably shouldn’t have been surprised with good this was.
Anyway, once again, a pleasant visit to Jabeerwocky, and I’ve definitely missed Poland.
Before heading off to Warsaw Beer Festival for a third day, I went to one of the new more decadent food courts in the city centre that I haven’t been to before, Hala Koszyki Warszawa. More on that in another post.
There were a number of tempting units, but it was the Indian one that I opted for.
The food menu. The service was perhaps just a little brusque, but it was all efficient and the prices were towards the higher end of the scale, but not unreasonably so. Customers are given a buzzer so that they know when to return to the unit when the food and drink is ready. The online reviews are generally positive although there are some rather direct and unfortunate replies from the venue on reviews that they don’t like.
I went for the Chicken Guntur, which is a curry made with green chillies, fresh curry leaves, mustard seeds and dry coconut. The curry was quite thick, with plenty of chicken in it, with a decent level of spice. There was a punchy and enjoyable flavour, and the rice was light and fluffy. The mango lassi was also creamy and delicious, it all combined well together.
Anyway, I was happy with this whole arrangement, it was served promptly, it looked appetising (well, as much as you can really do with paper plates) and it had a depth of flavour. I’d certainly come to this food court again, the general food reviews all seem very positive for most of the units here.
This is the third time that I’ve been to Warsaw Beer Festival, although it’s the first time that I’ve got a three day pass. The entrance is all well managed, just scan the QR code on the ticket and they hand visitors a wristband to keep on so they can come and go as they wish.
The advertising poster for the beer festival that took place in 2014.
And from the 2015 festival, with others lined up along the entrance gates.
There’s always plenty of seating as visitors can sit in the football stadium seats and watch whatever is taking place on the stage.
Inside there are three floors where breweries occupy their own stand, along with other merchants selling a variety of items. There are also games such as this, and also computer games.
And there were sometimes computer games that were taking place on the stage. It all added to the excitement.
Anyway, I had a lovely time at the beer festival, which costs around £13 for a three day ticket. Beer and food is then sold at prices that I thought were always reasonable, with everything feeling clean, organised and well managed. Although it could get very busy at times, there was also sufficient space to sit or stand, with everything clearly signed.
I’ve written about some breweries who were at the festival (and will likely write about some more), but so far that’s:
Nepo Brewing is another one of my favourite breweries with some quirky and intriguing beers. The brewery is located off towards Wrocław and they have been trading since 2014, now having their own taproom.
It was the mango sticky rice beer that caught my eye, I mean, what more could someone want from a beer? This was a special beer brewed just for the festival, a 6.8% punchy little number.
And this was the decadent treat that I hoped it would be. It was creamy, it had lots of mango, it was thick and slightly sweet. Delightful, and look at the lovely healthy colour.
I’m on something of a mission to eat at every Indian restaurant in Warsaw and I rarely repeat a visit, but this venue is located near to the stadium where Warsaw Beer Festival was taking place. As I had to pretty much walk by it to get back to the hotel, I thought that I might as well pop in.
It’s a comfortable and clean venue, with the temperature and lighting being appropriate. I won’t drone on for too long about the restaurant as I wrote about it when I visited with my friend Richard a few years ago.
Their favoured beer was Żywiec Białe, which was certainly agreeable to me. This is a wheat beer with a gentle and light flavour, although that transpired to be a little bit knocked about by the curry that I ordered.
I went for a chicken vindaloo and it had a decent amount of spice to it, with the chicken being tender. The curry had a richness of flavour, the rice was fluffy and the naan bread had some texture to it.
I considered this to be a second positive experience at the restaurant with friendly service, a clean environment, reasonable prices and decent food and drink.
I haven’t had any beers from Green Head before, but they seemed to be attracting some considerable interest at Warsaw Beer Festival. They were founded in 2018 and their brewery is located roughly half-way between Warsaw and Gdansk.
The beer that seemed to be drawing the most attention from the brewery was “I’m Green” and I note that it was pretty much the same colour as the football pitch. It was a quirky beer, gently sour, a tropical taste and I’m not entirely sure that the colouring was particularly natural, but there we go. I like beers that are a little different and although this isn’t the first green beer that I’ve had, they don’t come along often. I can’t imagine why not….
I visited this stand every day of the Warsaw Beer Festival, not in a stalking sense, but their beer range did change every day and I didn’t want to miss out too much. I consider Funky Fluid to be the best brewery in Europe, so this was always something that was likely to surprise and delight me.
The selection on the first day.
This is a pizza from one of the food trucks and it was very delicious. But, that’s not the highlight here, it’s the already mostly drunk Batch #1000 from the brewery. They gave me this free as it ran out whilst pouring, so that was a bonus. Anyway, this is their 1,000th recipe and this verged on being one of the best beers that I’ve had, up there with Goose Island and their Bourbon County Stouts. It was smooth, even at the 13.5% ABV and it had sherry notes, toffee, dark chocolate, bourbon and it was beautifully decadent. And the pizza complemented it beautiful.
And a quick mention of the Gelato XTREME : Banana, Mango & Yuzu. I mentioned this Craig from Norwich beer festival as I think more beers need yuzu in them. I’m not sure that he was convinced. Anyway, it was thick, creamy with heaps of banana and mango. Decadent, quirky and moreish, as well as being a challenge for the next brewery to try and clean that glass.
Anyway, always a delight to see Funky Fluid and to try several of their beers.
I had to start somewhere and this year’s beer festival started at Browar Moczybroda. They’re from Poznań and I’ve had a couple of their beers before in Poland, both of which were decent. This was about as quiet as the three-day festival was, so I took advantage of that. The brewery have been trading since 2018, although I don’t think that they have a taproom in Poznań.
I was pleased that they had plastic glasses as I didn’t want to try and get an actual glass back on Wizz Air. These cost £1 and they are refundable, but I’ve kept mine. The beer is the Jack Mangow, a 7% DIPA, which had a robust mango taste, it was juicy and I’m convinced that this was healthy. A very decent start to the weekend.
After a brief stay in Łódź, I went to get my train to Warsaw at the rather impressive Łódź Fabryczna railway station. This was heavily modernised in 2016 and it still looks in a decent state of repair. it first opened in 1866 as the terminus of the line linking Łódź with Koluszki, helping drive the city’s rapid industrial growth.
There has been a large investment into the Polish rail network over the last decade and these spacious, open and welcoming railway stations have been established in many cities. They might lack the heritage of the original station, but they do feel modern.
There’s my train, the 13:34.
Down to the platforms which go off for some way in both directions.
And here we are, the train was already waiting for passengers at the other end of the platform. This is one of the regional trains operated by Łódzka Kolej Aglomeracyjna (ŁKA).
It’s only about an hour’s journey into Warsaw and although it got a little busy, there was still plenty of space. As usual, there were plenty of power points and numerous tables. The journey was relaxed, with, yet again, no-one putting their feet on the seats or playing music loudly. Another joy to behold…
And safely into Warszawa Zachodnia (Warsaw West), which has been completely transformed over the last couple of years, but more of that in another post. That meant I was safely in Warsaw and ready to quickly check-in to my hotel and then head to the Warsaw Beer Festival.
I decided that it wasn’t worth leaving the airport as my inbound flight from Madeira reached Warsaw at around 22:45 and my outbound flight to London Luton airport left at 06:00. I would have only reached a city centre hotel by 00:00 and then had to leave it at 03:00, which felt a little wasteful.
There was an hour left in the landside McDonalds before it closed, so I used that opportunity to get a little snack and charge my devices up. Although, it transpired that there were numerous power outlets dotted around the landside area of the terminal.
Very Christmassy.
It was all a bit decadent for me, but they’d certainly made an effort with their Christmas decorations.
I had a little meander around the airport to pass the time, watching an Irish passenger having an argument with the armed airport police after they told him not to leave his bag unattended. They won that argument with their line “would you like to discuss this in an interview room?” in perfect English, which I felt was suitably friendly and he backed down.
I bought these from the shop as breakfast as the lounge didn’t open until 05:00 and it’s the other end of the airport from my gate, so I didn’t want to risk it.
I was one of the first people through to the airside area.
Who needs sleep when you can explore a mostly closed airside terminal?
I found a seat with a power outlet and made a determined effort not to fall asleep and miss my flight. There were clear announcements from the gate staff and the boarding process was once again clearly signed and operated efficiently.
The aircraft was around a five minute bus journey from the terminal, it wasn’t the most pleasant of transfers given how many people they’d shoved on the bus. It felt a little endless and I’m sure we went via the city centre.
It was aircraft registration 9H-WNW, another new plane for me. The seating Gods had given me an aisle seat and I decided that I would now have a little nap on the flight home. Everything went to plan with the flight, with helpful crew, clear updates from the pilots and the aircraft was clean and tidy.
With that, it was a walk to Luton Airport Parkway railway station, the one that I’ve decided is the worst run in the country, before getting a train to St. Alban’s, confusing the gateline staff, then returning to Norwich via London, Cambridge and Ely. All really rather lovely and that was the end of my travels for the year…..
