19th Warsaw Beer Festival
Warsaw Beer Festival invites you for its 18th birthday. The Polish beer market has rapidly changed in the past 7 years. Around 200 new breweries emerged (double the original number) alongside a similar number of craft beer pubs. 2000 new beers were released in just the last year. Surprisingly, the quality goes with the quantity, and the beer revolution, fuelled by experienced homebrewers, has quickly matured. We’re learning fast and from the best: America, Nordic countries, Belgium, Italy… We had to create everything from scratch, with our own rules.
Oh yes, we love to experiment. With smoked malts, traditional hops, spices, yeast, glitter, pickled cucumbers, and many, many more. Sometimes it’s stupid, sometimes it’s funny and sometimes it just works. We love to try new stuff, to experience new tastes and flavors. Every half a year there are new trends among craft breweries and beer drinkers. We’re masters in brewing smooth Baltic Porters and low-percentage smoked Grodziskie beer. We create flavors that can’t be found anywhere else
About the Festival
Warsaw Beer Festival is organized twice a year, in spring and autumn. It takes place in a covered VIP zone of Legia Warsaw Stadium in the strict center of the Polish capital. Each edition gathers around 20 thousand participants during a three-day event. Because of the limited space, we can present only the best Polish craft breweries (no corporations nor big players are allowed). At present this is the most prestigious craft beer festival in Poland and central Europe, setting the trends for the whole industry. With ~750 beers on 350 taps and around 100 premiere beers, it’s impossible not to find the taste you’d like. The number of brewery stands is limited to ~50 and the majority of them are Polish – we try to show only 2-4 most interesting foreign breweries.
But the Warsaw Beer Festival is not only about beer: we’ve prepared many other attractions like the best Polish food trucks, table football tournaments, pinball machines, specialized lectures, tastings, discussions, and many more. You can spend the whole weekend in the stadium experiencing the atmosphere and great people. And most people do.
People
At the autumn edition, we’re expecting around 18-20 thousand people. Those are – among others – the most important figures of the young Polish craft beer scene: brewers, homebrewers, brewery owners, importers, pub owners, bloggers, beer geeks, and future brewers. Most of them are looking for inspiration.
Foreign Guests – Jopen (NL)
In fourteenth-century Holland, Haarlem was the most important brewing city. From its 110 breweries, the beer was shipped all over the world in large 112-liter barrels called ‘Jopen.’ Thanks to its high quality, the beers from Haarlem were very popular; the Gruit beer in particular. Sadly, due to the rise and dominance of lager breweries, Haarlem’s rich brewing tradition was lost when in 1916 the last brewery closed its doors.
In 1994, inspired by this rich brewing history and troubled by the loss of all the historic breweries, a group of enthusiastic locals (Haarlem Beer Society) set out to recover Haarlem’s brewing tradition. Valuable information was retrieved from the city archives, including the incredible finding of two original recipes from 1407 and 1501. The choice was quickly made to brew these beers at the start of Haarlem’s Brewing Renaissance. On 11 November 1994, the city’s 750th anniversary was heralded with the younger beer, called ‘Hoppenbier.’ Exactly 16 years later the 2nd brewery, located in an old church in the town centre was opened and now it is called Jopenkerk – Jopen Church.
Both breweries are brewing not only traditional beers but new wave, craft hoppy, and barrel-aged beers as well.
Place
The Warsaw Beer Festival takes place at Legia Warsaw Municipal Stadium at St. Łazienkowska 3. The space is heated and covered, close to the city center, easily approachable by bus or by foot. WBF owes this space much of its climate.
Organizers
Jacek Materski is a co-owner of the first Polish craft brewery Artezan and one of the most experienced beer judges in Poland. He recently opened his Artezan Craft Beer Pub in Warsaw.
Paweł Leszczyński is a homebrewer and also an experienced beer judge. He specializes in sensory training.
