A Trip to Ohrid, Macedonia

A warm Sunday evening in July saw us landing at Ohrid airport, in the south of Macedonia.
I sorted some money out from a mathematically challenged cash machine (I can't have 6000 denars because it can only supply multiples of 500???) Huh?
Then we picked one of the countries top 10 worst drivers to take us the 9km into the lakeside town.
Bags dropped at the hotel, we headed straight out to sample some traditional Macedonian nightlife in, erm, the Dublin Irish Pub...

The Dublin Bar (Kej Macedonia), to be fair, is okay, although why pubs the world-over can't successfully come up with a new theme is a mystery to me.
With the second half of the evenings World Cup football game booming out of the TV, I found myself drinking local brew Zlaten Dab, brewed by Prilepska Pivanica.
A promo team were giving out scratch cards to anyone drinking the beer and I soon found myself the proud owner of a Zlaten Dab baseball cap and keyring. Unfortunately that seemed to be all the prizes they had - if there'd been a t-shirt and a golf umbrella to win, I may have drank myself under the table on the first night to complete my Zlaten Dab collection.

Zlaten's big rival in the country is Skopsko, brewed by Pivara Skopje in the capital and owned by Heineken.
We first sampled this next day, sitting on the outdoor terrace, under large canopies next to a small square at Magic (Tsar Samoil). It would be the first of many of these beers. With just 6 breweries listed on Ratebeer for the whole country, this wasn't going to be a trip with a huge variety of beer. By the end of the week Mrs PropUptheBar would declare that she'd had enough lager to last the whole year and never wanted to see another bottle of Skopsko ever again.
Skopsko is a 4.9% pale lager. In a blind tasting I probably would stand no chance of telling the difference between any of the big-name Balkan brewer's main offerings. But Skopsko never gave me a baseball cap and keyring , so I'm going to claim that Zlaten is definitely the best!

Local sweet-treat, Ohrid Cake.

Observations about the bars of Ohrid:
- There are loads of pleasant spots, all of which will serve you pretty much the same range of lagers, plus good local wines and bargain cocktails if that's what you fancy. There's some lovely places with terraces perched above the lake shore. Of these I liked Terraza Aquarius (Ulica Kosta Abrash), where we enjoyed a couple of beers watching the sun disappear for the day.

- A bottle or large glass of local beer will cost a very reasonable £1.20 - £1.50 on average in the tourist bars.
- They're very generous with peanuts.
- The concept of a smoking ban has come nowhere near Macedonian establishments - you can smoke everywhere in copious quantities.

Ultimately, this wasn't a place for my beer explorations, but it is a magical place to spend a few days, swim in the lake and explore the old town. The view over Lake Ohrid from the citadel or from the breakfast roof-terrace of our hotel was simply magical.

Picture-postcard view from Ohrid - the church of St John at Kaneo overlooking the lake.