Pivo in Pivo

Leaving the series "Beer shops of Budapest" aside for a moment, I will embark on another possibly-not-to-be-frequently updated series - "Czech Pubs of Budapest". These all seem to have opened in the last year or two, and the one with the best selection of beer is undoubtedly "Pivo" on Hegedűs Gyula utca, in the 13th district. So I'll deal with this one first. Cue linky:

Pivo söröző

Two of the draught beers have changed since I took this photo...

I have been to "Pivo" a few times, although not as often as I'd like, as I don't live in the 13th district any more. I moved away just before Pivo opened, at the end of 2010. Quite unfortunate timing. Still it is closer than actually going to Czech For those who don't know (much) pivo means beer in Czech (and all other Slavic languages.)

Pivo is apparently the only pub in Hungary with a range of guest beers - unless you count the "Csak a Jó Sörök" shop on Kertész utca, which has a different couple of beers on tap every time I go - but that isn't really a pub. In fact, Pivo is a bit too small to call a pub, as there are only two tables, a couple of counters to sit up at on high stools and the bar. It is on the small side, so turning up without a reservation in the evening is not recommended. Fortunately it is quite easy to make a reservation by phone, and they will let you sit at any empty tables before the people who have reserved turn up. Or you could go during the day, when it is usually empty and there are discounts.

There are currently 5 draught beers, all Czech of course, and a wide and changing range of bottled beers. Although the beers rotate they do seem to have some regulars - all the Cerna Hora brewery's beers generally seem to be available in bottles, and their unfiltered "Vycepni" (10° plato) type lager has always been on tap when I have visited, and I find it pretty tasty. Its also the cheapest beer they have, at 390ft for a 0.5 litre korsó. Which is pretty reasonable by any Budapest pub standards. Not everyone seems to rate it, but maybe they aren't used to real yeasty unfiltered beer - or they just want something stronger. This weaker type of beer is actually the most popular type in the Czech Republic (although not in such a special unfiltered version.) A good description of the various Czech beer styles can be found here: Czech breweries and beer styles - I found it most educational.

It is testament to the range of types and styles of beer that Pivo serves  that last time I was there, a week or two ago, I had three beers, and none of them was a classic light Czech pilsener (a la Buvar or Pilsener Urquell). This may have been a little contrary of me, in a Czech pub, but there you go. As I visited during the afternoon I took advantage of the 20% off draught beers between 2pm and 5pm, and had a Havran, a brown lager ( a tmavy, as the Czechs would have it) from the Vyškovi brewery. I can confirm what the Pivo website says - it has a pleasant malt-caramelly taste and went down well. A little watery perhaps, but that meant there was room for a couple more.  They have another brown lager on tap "Cerna Rebel" which I tried another time and which was stickier (less watery) I think. Really I should taste them side by side, maybe with a bottle of Cerna Hora "Granat" to be properly impartial in the matter. There's an idea.

There is plenty of information about the beers on offer on posters and little leaflets placed on the bar, and from these I learnt that the Chlumecký Vít is a wheat beer - apparently Vít is a man's name in Czech, and also the English for wheat. Well, not really, but apparently the people of Vysoký Chlumec don't discern any difference between an English "w" sound and a "v" (like the Germans) so for them the pun might work. The beer is better than their attempt at word play, and for my money (530ft for 0.5 litre) better than an Edelweiss, which is the wheat beer most often found in Hungarian pubs, and which will cost more in most pubs. It was essentially a German hefeweizen type wheat beer, but perhaps not quite as complex (or banana-y) and floral as the better examples of the style. A good effort though.


The other beer I had on my most recent trip to Pivo was from a bottle, as I couldn't resist tasting what a Czech attempt at an India Pale Ale would taste like. Also from Vyškovi brwery, the Jubiler IPA is probably a result of the American fashion for IPAs, but comes out tasting more like a good English one - not too "XtrEEme"-ly hopped, but instead with a good balance of malt and hops. With four types of malt and three types of hops it is quite a modern sort of brew, but very well executed and not some kind of silly homebrew experiment like some "new wave" IPAs can be. It is also cold hopped, and I think you can tell. At 490 forints for 0.355 litres it is not all that pricey either, for what it is. I certainly thought it money well spent. Actually I didn't pay for it, come to think of it, but you know what I mean. Oh, and I did try to pay, but my companion was very insistent.


The service is good in Pivo, especially when the owner is there, as he knows his stuff. There are a few bar snacks available, but for proper Czech food I would go to the Ferdinand söröző in the 6th district. Which may form the basis of another post in this series.


The only downside to the rotation of beers in Pivo is that you sometimes can't get a beer that you enjyoed the last time you visited. This was the case with the beers from the Svijany brewery,  a couple of which I tried in the summer at Pivo, but couldn't find when I went there the other week. Particularly tasty was a crisp, hoppy pilsener called Svijansky Rytir (apologies for not including the proper diacritic marks) - but happily the "Csak a Jó sörök" shop has bottles of this, and even had it on tap a couple of weeks back. Maybe Pivo and Csak a Jó sörök have an agreement not to stock the same beer as each other - although its not as if the Hungarian market is flooded with high quality beer from independednt Czech brewers. It might be if more Hungarians tasted how much better it is than the highly suspect Kozel and Zlaty Bazant brewed under license by multinationals here - whose shareholders must love this market for being so undemanding. With a few (very) notable exceptions, like Pivo.

Three Beer Shops - part 1

Having not posted for quite a while I'll be doing a bit of summarizing and listing in the next few posts, which at least has the advantage of conveying quite a bit of information in a relatively waffle-free format. Apart from the first sentence, that is.

I haven't been out sitting drinking in pubs very much since August, as a freshly made (brewed?) Dad. I have, however, picked up a few bottles of beer to drink at home in front of the PC / TV, once the little chap has gone off to sleep. The problem with this in Budapest is that all but a ahandful of the shops all sell the same Hungarian macro-lagers, with their "magical" maize, and generally Pilsener Urquell is the only half-decent beer available. I mentioned that Tesco have a slightly wider range of Czech beers, but having tried all of them several times I started to make special trips to special little shops. Three are worth mentioning, listed here in ascending order of greatness.

3. GRoby
This is a chain of a few mini-markets - or perhaps cramped supermarkets might be a better description - dotted around Buda and Pest. Its not a place to do your everyday grocery shopping, unless you like paying extra - I had written these off as something like the CBA chain - a shop I only go to when the better value places are closed or too far away. On such occasions I go in, find that all the milk and bread costs more than it should, get annoyed at having to get out of other people's way all the time without knocking over stacks of tins in the extremely narrow aisles, then leave vowing not to go back. Until next time.

Or until, that is, I noticed that they actually have a wider than usual range of bottled beers.
First off they have a pretty good selection of Belgian beers. I know they can be nice but I can rarely bring myself to shell out 750ft or more for one of those cute little bottles. I keep meaning to try a range of Belgian beers, then remembering how they cost about 1 or 2 euros in Brussels, and my stingy side gets the better of me.
Then there are a usual couple of English beers that pop up from time to time in supermarkets in Budapest - Wells Bombardier and Banana Bread Beer. I was feeling less penny pinching than usual one day and bought a bottle of the latter, and was pleasantly surprised - after not having ale for months the range of malty flavours present was a a treat, and a nice change from all these lagers and (sort-of) IPAs with their dominant hops. And there was a hint of banana in there too. I think they had cans of Courage, or Director's or something too, but I didn't bother with them, as I wouldn't bother with them in England either. The Bombardier is available on tap at the Pointer pubs - but thats another story.
Finally, at a more acceptable price level for beers for less special occasions there were a couple of beers from a couple of smaller Czech brewers. I tried two types of Zlatopramen - the standard lezak (light), which was a a decent pilsener, and the "half and half", amber coloured poltmavy, which was OK, but with a bit too much dark malty coffee type stuff for my liking. Slightly cheaper, and of similar quality were the offerings from Litovel. I first tried this at the Czech beer days on Deak Tér in the summer (another untold story) and enjoyed both their standard light pils and their more reddish, maltier poltmavy -particulary the latter.

Sadly I didn't see the Litovel last time I popped in, but it has been out of stock before, so it may return to the shelves at some point. It seems that it is imported to Hungary by a small entrepreneur, so it might depend on the size of his garage and how recently he has taken his van to Moravia.

GRoby has since been rather eclipsed by the other two beer shops I found, but I'll still pop in if I am passing. And I am still not quite sure how to say the name of the shop. Is it "Gay Robbie"? If so, that would give it extra points. They also sell some rather tasty bread - for slightly more than I usually want to pay.