Notes on Central European Beer

I had the great pleasure of joining the Central European Brewers Festival this past weekend, bringing me into contact with brewers from Poland, Croatia, Romania, Hungary and elsewhere. (For the purposes of this fest, proximity to Budapest seems more significant than common definitions of Central Europe.) As a cold war kid, this region has always been an embarrassing lacuna in my knowledge. We learned very little about anything east of Germany, and only in middle age have I begun (finally!) visiting and absorbing a bit of remedial education. My knowledge of the beer culture in many of these countries is almost as woeful, but that means visiting places like Budapest is rewarding and enlightening.

In terms of beer, my knowledge is often just as bad. Parts of Central Europe are the heartland of brewing—these places I know. Czechia is second only to Germany in terms of influence, while Austria has an august if slightly less visible brewing tradition. Poland is on the map as well, but more for its history than current situation. Because of the region’s high Beeriness Quotient (BQ, patent pending), I figured I’d find countries with established markets for new, small breweries—what we inevitably call “craft breweries.” In Western Europe, that brewing revival usually had roots in the late 20th century, even in places with no great tradition of brewing. The biggest surprise of the visit? In this region, these breweries didn’t arrive until 2010 or later. In some cases, the oldest brewery isn’t more than a decade old.

This rebirthing of local brewing is happening around the world. Eventually, individual regions may develop something recognizably local, but in a pattern I first witnessed in the US in the 1980s, the first stage of beer is derivative. In 2024, the template everywhere—and that means here as well—is pure American, and it’s even common for breweries in this region to use English names. Americans did the same thing in the 1980s, cribbing from European brewing. First the brewers have to work with existing brewing vocabularies before they create their own languages.

What’s different is the internet—now information moves far more quickly. In the U.S., it took brewers 15-30 years (depending on the region) to develop native beer. Brewers weren’t even making the beer they imitated properly because most had never been to Europe and they had no information about how to make those beers.

Breweries will pass through the early stages of development far quicker than the US did, though, because they do have that information. That means they’re making better examples of American beer than American brewers did of European beer. Presumably, the cycle of local experimentation will follow more quickly. Today it’s all hazy IPAs and fruit sours, but in 2030, who knows?

In terms of beer quality, it’s much the same. As you would expect, breweries don’t have the experience, resources, or access they do in the US. They don’t get to study the best practices of established breweries, or pick their brains about techniques and practices. Perhaps worst of all, they don’t have access to good examples of the beer they’re brewing. American IPA doesn’t make it to Europe in very good shape, so they’re doing their best based on description. Predictably, it means I’ve found beer that’s more dated and more often prone to weird flavors (either because of process or design) than you’d find in the US. This all comes with a caveat. A lot of information is out there, either at places like Craft Beer & Brewing (podcast or print), the MBAA podcast, and other amazing resources. Even if they can’t taste fresh IPAs, they can hear precisely how they’re made. Everyone I spoke to understood typical brewing practices and used them in their brewhouses.

One big difference between these young markets and ones that came before is timing. The poor brewers who launched their companies in the teens ran flat into a pandemic. That was bad enough, but this is an especially fragile region because of its proximity to Ukraine and Russia. Grain and fuel prices spiked, along with inflation. Americans complained when inflation briefly crested above 8%, but it’s back down close to the Fed’s target. Meanwhile, inflation is still bad in these countries, though declining. A few months ago it was in the 8-10% range and now it’s around 6%. Still.

Each country in the region has specific conditions that make it hard to generalize about price, but craft beer is more expensive than mass-produced stuff, which is hard for people who have spent four years in crisis. In the past, when I’ve encountered young craft beer markets, there’s a since of excitement and possibility. In this region, breweries are in triage and just trying to get back to normal economies. They’re excited about the beer, but anxious about the market and tired from the long slog.

Two country-specific notes. I spent a few days in Czechia and one thing I didn’t fully appreciate is how insular that market is. At the conference, emcee, writer, and Prague resident Evan Rail even joked about it. He started the conference by engaging the audience about how far they’d traveled to get there. He asked for a hand of Czech brewers and none went up. He laughed and said, “That’s typical!”

I’ve always wondered why Americans knew so little about Czech beer, but this is a big part of it. I recently wrote about Czech amber lagers and reached out to six breweries—only one ever even returned my email. Czechs sell a ton of beer in Czechia; it’s the market they care about. As an Oregonian, I totally get that insularity. It is probably the main reason Czech beer is so good and distinctive.

This second one, regarding Poland, is more speculative. When I visited Krakow in 2019, I was struck by how many Baltic porters I saw. The head judge at the conference beer festival, Marek Kamiński, is a brewer from Poznan, Poland, and he gave a great presentation of grodziskie (I interviewed him for a future podcast). He agreed that they were a thing and added that porters in general—always lagered—were popular. Baltic porters seem to be a template for variations—smoked porters, rye porters, imperial Baltics, etc. sound familiar? I love those beers and I hope it’s not a passing fancy.

Leaving the conference and reflecting on what I’ve seen, I am very intrigued by this region. It’s true that they’re just getting started on the new era of small-scale brewing, but they have a tradition of brewing other countries lack—or are near to countries like Austria and Czechia and can see mature brewing at the source. My wild-ass guess is that this will lead them away from the hoppy American tradition and back toward lagers. People in Poland and Romania drink among the most beer in the world, and Croatia and Hungary are up there. They drink lagers, of course, so it would make sense to see them embrace fuller-flavored examples. The great thing about watching culture develop before your eyes, however, is that you just never know.

I’m watching with interest.