Tuesday, 22 July 2025

A Katowice Craft Beer Bonanza

A return to Katowice - my last visit being in December 2018 when daylight hours were in short supply and it rained incessantly.  I was looking forward to seeing the city in the sunshine. 
Only to arrive in July to temps in the mid-teens and pouring rain.

One thing to mention about Katowice is that you're not going to come away with a stunning selection of pretty pub pictures.
No Bull & Bladder or Lamp Tavern's here.  In fact, Wolverhampton Spoons would probably be the good-looker in Katowice.
Hence, lots of pictures of pub/bar doorways in this post... 
Klub Podróżników Namaste (Jana III Sobieskiego 27, 40-082 Katowice)
This was our first port of call on arrival in the city, braving the heaviest of the rain to navigate the streets to the east of the central drag to reach it.

It translates as travellers bar, so I figured I may be able to regale the clientele with tales of trips to Aylesbury and Dunstable.  Except, the traveller pictures on the walls were more of the intrepid reaching a Himalayan peak variety.  And the clientele was very low on numbers on a Tuesday teatime.

This was a thoroughly nice bar, though.  It consisted several rooms, the brick walls between part knocked through to create one nicely cluttered and live-in space.  
 
There were five draft beers on offer from Poland and Czechia, all of the pale lager/pale ale variety, with a decent selection of bottles for those craving something different.
I picked the Browar Jana 'IPA' - which wasn't much like an IPA, but did a good job of washing down the big zapiekanka open baguettes.

An eclectic playlist in the travellers bar alternating between local obscurities and 80s pop. 

If you've made it to the Klub Podróżników Namaste, I'd recommend popping into the Czech basement bar on the corner of the same street - Hospoda (Gliwicka 6, 40-079 Katowice) which will dish you up mugs of Bernard beer to drink in a warren of cave-like dark rooms.

On day one, though, we took advantage of a break in the weather and trekked through the centre of the city to one of the craft beer hotspots where much of the Untappd action is.
Browariat Craft Beer Zone (Francuska 11, 40-015 Katowice)
Another basement bar with steps leading down from an unspectacular entrance.  Those steps take you down to a cracking bar, beer list on the wall to one side, mind-boggling bottle and can listings at the side of the counter.
Beyond the bar are several snug spaces and sunterraenean rooms with vaulted ceilings in a bar that is full of character.
We gravitated to the furthest point where you get retro Euro beer posters on the walls and a shelf with vintage radios and a fine collection of German beer mugs.
I sipped my Moon Lark Brewery 'One More...Rauchbier' - a properly smokey marzen, on the way to matching Schlenkerla, but not quite.
Pocketed a good selection of beer mats for the growing collection.
And frowned at the sleepy jazz music choice of The Modern Sound of Harry Beckett LP.

The whole place livened up quickly, with a sudden influx of customers and a much-needed change in tempo of the music.  I contemplated staying for the imperial stout, but thought better of it (in a rare moment of sensibility).

Distractions on the way back included building-sized street art and vertical parking.
We'd be back in on the same street as Browariat a couple of days later. 
Directly across the road from the craft bar is Cybertap...
CyberTap: Pizzeria i samoobsługowy pub (Francuska 12, 40-015 Katowice)
This is the first time I've ventured into a serve-yourself bar since discovering one in Mannheim in 2018. 
Here's the process at Cybertap...
💳 Procure a card, topped up with zloty, from the staff at a small counter to one side.
🥛 Grab a glass. 
👉 Pick a beer.  Piwne Podziemie 'The Bitters '77' has a punk band on the picture, that'll do.
💳 Tap the card and get a 5-second countdown in which you need to start pouring.
😟 Panic.
🍺 Come away with 2cm liquid and 10cm froth.

Here's someone who looks like they'll do a much better job at pouring their beer than I did...

The bonus is that you can try as little or as much as you want.  The cost of your serving is displayed on the screen, rising as you keep pouring.  As I'm the type of person who watches the fare rise in a taxi in horror and contemplates getting out a mile from home, none of my measures were very large.
There were around a dozen 'interesting' beers (heavy on the Ziemia Obiecana brewery), plus your bog-standard lager, white/red/rose wines (not for the connoisseur) and - alarmingly - self-serve spirits.
Enough for us to settle in for quite a evening session.  Anyone who claims we degenerated into louts mixing rum into the dark ale must surely be mishtaken.


Katowice's big bustling entertainment street is Mariacka.
Left to my own devices to try and find somewhere to meet Mrs PropUptheBar on a Thursday evening, I opted for the least trendy looking establishment on the street, where I guessed I could get served at the bar rather than led to a table.

Piwiarnia Mariacka (Mariacka 6, 40-000 Katowice)
In the UK this would be the Craft Union.  A functional, if not hip, bar with shiny wooden floors, lots of TV screens, no-nonsense bar staff, and a mixed non-touristy crowd.

Beers from Kozel and Książęce, the latter sound exotic until you realise they're part of the same mega-brand brewing corp as Tyskie and Lech.
Książęce IPA for me - tasting every bit like a lager and nothing like an IPA.  But competitively priced at 14 zloty, less than £2.90 for a half litre of 5.4% fizz.

Alternatively, £7.15 for your big jug of Tyskie.  A tenner for a wooden platter of brown stuff.  I don't think Mistrzowski skład is mixed salad.
Just across the road from Piwiarnia is a brewpub on the ground floor of a Best Western.

Restauracja Browar Mariacki (Mariacka 15, 40-014 Katowice)
It's a brewpub, yet doesn't really look like one.  Not a bit of shiny brewing equipment in sight, in what's a smart minimalist set-up, complete with polite serving staff and knifes, forks and serviettes in little paper envelopes at the tables.

When we were last here in the depths of winter they served some decent strong dark brews.  Mango and passion fruit wheat beer was the summer special - less appealing for me, but Mrs PropUptheBar's pick.  I opted for the regular AIPA 16°, a reasonable 7% American IPA, accompanying possibly the best food we had all week.

Next up was Absurdia, which has relocated since I was last here - now situated on the restaurant-lined pedestrianised Staromiejska.
Absurdalna (Staromiejska 9, 40-012 Katowice)
Nice barrels of flowers outside which could be the equivalent of the UK good hanging basket = good beer rule (not completely proven as yet).
Plunging into that very dark-looking interior we at least found a good selection of beer.
Twelve to pick from on the electronic display above the bar, all from Browar Starkraft, covering pretty much all tastes and some beyond (Apple Pie Cherry Blackberry Graff, anyone?).
It's a moodily lit place, illuminated by the odd bit of neon, cushioned slouch seating on the windowsills, tables with oddball circuit board designs...
Hmmm...I was going to say I had the dry stout in Absurdia but that picture suggests differently.
Do I have foggy craft beer memory, or was I just distracted by the fact that bits of those tables lit up when you put your glass down in different places.

And the final bar in this post is arguably the best in Katowice...

Biała Małpa (3 Maja 38, 40-097 Katowice)
Head through the archway off the bustling central street with its shops and trams, and you'll find the mini Biała Małpa empire: Mexican street food on the right, craft beer on the left, covered seating and outdoor bar in the middle and a bunch more al-fresco tables beyond.
The beer list was a pretty superb best-of-Poland selection, plus a couple of imports (including a Schlenkerla Weichsel Rotbier, a cherry wood version which I've not seen before and had to try).
Just one gripe (perhaps two if I grumble about the single gents WC).
And that's the minimal difference between small and large beers - 19 zloty - 22 zloty.
That's how I came away with an 11% 'Portermas Smoked Plums and Cocoa Nibs' by Pinta in a pint glass.  'Cos why go for small when the large is 75p-or-so more?  To be fair, I got a very big foamy head on that hand-pulled (!!!) impy porter and I wasn't about to complain about it considering how much damage a half litre of double-digit beer could potentially cause.

This is a bar we made a couple of visits to and we tried a fair few things from Mexican gose to Dubai chocolate porter.
There's a bit of Go action in the pic below, the one chap taking on two opponents in two games at once.  Plus a vertical queue to the bar.  And that door to the solitary gents rest room.

That's quite enough waffling on about craft bars, I think.
I'll leave you with a shot of the old Katowice mine buildings, now converted to a must-see modern museum and art gallery.

And - probably - the cities stand-out building...oh look, the rain's stopped...
Na zdrowie!

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