In Pursuit of Põhjala

To beat the 2023 winter blues, we packed our bags and headed off to the Estonian capital Tallinn in January. Where the days were shorter and it was gloomier and chillier than back at home, but they did have an awful lot of craft beer.

Day one, and we decided to trek a short way from the Old Town to visit one of Estonian's best known breweries, along with some bottle shops, brewpubs and bars.
Sightseeing?  Ah, we'll get around to that on day two... 

It's a 30-minute walk from the centre of town to the Noblessner Marina where Põhjala have been located since 2018. 
The name Noblessner comes from Emanuel Noble (nephew of Alfred) and Arthur Lessner, who together established the marina as Imperial Russia's principal submarine factory in 1912.  Going through several incarnations over the years, the marina became bankrupt in 2001, but is now taking on a new lease of life.

Põhjala Tap (Peetri tn 5 10415 Tallinn - web)
Through the main doors at Põhjala you head past a small shop, then upstairs with windows looking out onto the shiny brewing kit.   At the top of the stairs is the stylish taproom, with an island bar in the middle and kitchen to the far end.
On a Sunday morning the taproom was open from 10am to serve bottomless coffee and brunch to the respectable locals and imperial stouts to disreputable tourists.

Oh and what imperial stouts they were!
I started on their celebratory 'Baltic Porter Day 2023', at a sensible pre-noon strength of 10%.  Before moving on to the truly marvelous 'Sticks & Stones (Cellar Series)'.  Brewed with raspberry branch tea, raspberries and liquorice, aged in sherry barrels, and weighing in at a mere 13.5%.

Alongside the fine-looking brunch orders being delivered to tables, the trays of donuts wheeled behind the bar were mighty tempting.
Too tempting for us...

We stuck around a bit longer to try one more of the porters on the tap list.
And to take a shiny brewing kit picture.  Of course.

Leaving Põhjala, we stuck to the footpaths skirting the seafront instead of following the roads back towards town.  It's a fascinating walk through the marina area, past stylish new residential units under construction, alongside an iglu park, and  through a display of old boats which make up the outdoor collection of the nearby naval museum.
A short cut took us through the yard of the one-time Patarei prison, a creepy relic of time gone by.

After such an interesting route, it was a bit of a shame to find our beer shop destination in a rather dull building.

Uba Ja Humal (Võrgu 3 10415 Tallinn - web)
They made up for the plain looks with a good varied selection of beers on tap at reasonable prices (as long as what you wanted hadn't been brewed across the water in Scandinavia).  Twenty taps in total, plus an impressive selection of bottles and cans lined on shelves in the back section.  Probably just as well that I didn't have carry-on luggage for the journey home, otherwise I could have got quite carried away here.

The background music was a bit Red Hot Chili Pepper heavy, but we were comfy sat in the bar, drinking murky double-IPA and being given permission to eat our own sandwiches.  (The original idea to eat these by the waterfront had been kyboshed when we realised picnics in -4° were a bad idea).

Then they played Toploader and we made a hasty exit, walking to the Balti Jaam Market...

Up on the first floor of the market, and across a walkway over the vegetable stalls, is a brewpub.  Complete with a scary scowling man who looks like he didn't especially want to be in my picture...

Humalakoda Pub Restaurant Brewery (Kopli 1, 10159 Tallinn - web)

All very modern, bright and airy with a never-ending climbing plant covering the metallic dividers, and a coffee-table trip-hop soundtrack to entertain us.

The beer list included 11 of their own creations including Black IPAs, Berliner Weisse, pale ale and Brewdog Punk IPA on the guest tap in case you were missing big brand familiarity.

It was about time I picked something a bit weaker than the double IPAs and Imperial stouts...

Doh!

We headed out into the dark & chilly early evening - the cold being much easier to handle with a 13% barley wine inside you!   
The area a few minutes walk to the east of the market, next to the railway lines, was once a sprawling factory prior to being refurbished and reinvented as a creative quarter.  

Nice street art...

There were cocktail hang-outs, gin bars, modern cafes and restaurants, and Peatus - a bar in old decommissioned railway carriages which was loudly playing Imagine Dragons through their outdoor speakers (yuck!).
But being Sunday it was all a bit quiet.

We made our way to Põhja Konn, the Nothern Frog, if my Estonian translation is right.

Põhja Konn (Telliskivi 60a-5, 10412 Tallinn)
Google mysteriously told us this bar was busier than usual, which was worrying as we seemed to have it to ourselves when we arrived.
It turned out there were a few folks lounging on sofas in a first floor room, plus a few more following us in, but it's fair to say that we weren't at Põhja Konn when the party was in full swing.
I was tapping my foot along to a cracking retro soundtrack, which seemed to be mostly made up of tracks by the Tremeloes.  Let your hair hang down.

There was plenty of choice from local breweries on the 20 taps here, from which I finally picked a sensible strength porter, brewed by Käbliku Brewery, located in Palutaja in the SE of Estonia.

Just one last bar to tackle before calling it a day and heading back to our hotel.
This was back in the middle of the old town, where we made our way to Hell Hunt, which isn't as rock 'n' roll as it sounds...

Hell Hunt (Pikk 39, 10133 Tallinn - web)
Of all the places we visited, this was the most reminiscent of an English pub, except for the table service which caught us by surprise after being happily served at the bar everywhere else we'd been.

Food was considerably more expensive than your average English pub though, with the bill for snack-sized sweet potato fries, jalapeno poppers and cheesy bites coming to an astronomic €22.40 💰
Our beer snacks were washed down by the dark house beer - a tasty and quafable Hell Hunt 'Tume'.
Whilst some obscure football teams battled it out on the big screen. 

Little support for Man Utd, whilst the Tallinn Arsenal supporters branch were out in force and congratulating each other on a win when the ref blew the full-time whistle.

A successful first day in Tallinn, in my books.
But once you've done the best imperial porters in town on lunchtime on day one, where do you go next?