Has Craft Beer Survived In The Balkans After Covid?

Three weeks after arriving in Croatia, on the island of Krk in the sapphire Adriatic Sea, I drank my first canned Croatian craft beer. Nova Runda began canning their beers only three months before Covid-19 changed the world, and this decision saved them. Now in 2022, their brewery, in the town of Zabok, Croatia, is doing well.

These cans returned with me to the USA.

But before that idyllic beach, I wasn’t sure I would even get into Europe. Or drink any new beer. The pandemic closed many small breweries around the world. When I flew into Zagreb on May 27th, 2021, I wondered: Has Craft Beer Survived In The Balkans After Covid?

After spending 20 hours trapped in Paris’s Charles De Gaulle airport, I was jet lagged and exhausted. If I had been able to leave, I would have gone sightseeing in Paris. But the European Union’s ongoing restrictions on Americans (even those vaccinated) prevented me from doing anything more than wait in transit inside the airport. I spent a sleepless night on a squeaky pleather sofa in the international terminal’s public lounge. The sound of loud Russian shouting blared in my right ear while loud Arabic blared in the left.

This was not the case for Croatia. Being outside of the Schengen Zone, it allowed vaccinated Americans to travel within its borders. It was the perfect time for Americans to visit all the fine Mediterranean islands before the Covid restrictions were completely lifted and the tourists returned in droves.

A folder containing a bureaucratic assault on the customs agents alleviated my entry:

My Original Vaccination Card
Copies Of My Vaccination Card
A Doctor’s Signed Letter of Vaccination Proof
PCR Test Completed Within 24 Hours Before Travel
Receipt of My AirBnb Payment for My Stay
Approval Of Entry Form from Croatian Tourism Board
Mobile App with My Vaccine Proof

It was overkill. By the time I pulled out the third document, they told me to shut up and pass through customs. This same equivalent documentation made the previous transit through France smooth too.

Opatovina Ulica: Zagreb’s Beer Street

My AirBnb, located directly on central Bana Josipa Square, was one of the lowest priced places in Zagreb. Its value rose as my host greeted me by the entrance. His wrinkled, smiling face was kind. He brought me up to a pristine one-room flat in vintage Yugoslav style. Although the building was directly on the main square, the room’s balcony opened to an interior courtyard, so inside it was quiet and peaceful. I crashed for several hours and woke up in the early evening – still jet lagged but relieved to be in Europe again. I would spend the summer in Croatia, visit Slovenia for a while then return to Serbia.

Opatovina Ulica, known as Zagreb’s Beer Street, was only a 5-minute walk from the apartment. It had been the location of a craft beer festival I had visited back in 2013. The popular Tlkaciceva Ulica, one of Zagreb’s nightlife destinations, was just one street over. I went there for dinner at Mali Medo Medvedgrad, Croatia’s first craft brewpub. The greasy taste of cevapcici sausage, and a crisp tapped Fakin’ IPA, were a fine reward after more than a year trapped in the pandemic lockdown.

Still, due to Covid-19, all the pubs would be closing at 10pm that Friday. By the time I finished dinner, it was already 9pm. I rushed to Opatovina Ulica and stepped into the first craft beer bar that I knew, Craft Room. Not surprisingly, it was empty inside.

“Sorry,” I inquired, “All the pubs close at 10pm tonight, so I only have an hour to drink here?”

The two bartenders, one girl and one boy, gave me strange looks. The girl spoke up first.

“No, our country’s – how you say it in English? – health place just said today that we will open until 23hr.”

“I guess it’s your Department of Health… lucky me. That’s another hour of drinking.”

The guy was closer to me, so I asked him for a big IPA I saw on tap: Pulfer Brewery’s Hopped As Fuck IPA.

He paused, stared at me at me for a long while, then responded with the common Slavic pronunciation of IPA, “You want an EEHH- PAA?”

“Yes, one I – P – A. That full orange one from Pulfer.”

The girl stepped up to the bar.

“Sorry, this is Josip and he feels uncomfortable speaking English with you.”

“No problem, Joe,” I responded. “Let me drink more and I’ll try speaking Serbian – uh, Croatian – whatever it is. I haven’t practiced in more than a year. Stupid pandemic lockdown.”

I had contacted a beer friend from Zagreb. He said he was only one kilometer away and could soon join me for drinks. His knowledge of craft beer far surpasses mine, and probably anyone’s in Croatia. For this, he is known as: The Oracle. While I was waiting, the owner of Craft Room introduced himself to me, and we began chatting about his bar’s beer.

Pelinkovac Attacks The Jet Lag

A third bartender had been serving drinks outside. She went behind the bar and gave me an intense look while placing some burgundy-colored shots on her tray. She was a lovely ginger – an unusual thing to see in the Mediterranean Balkans. I looked back at her and realized the pandemic had made me very lonely. I hadn’t locked eyes with a woman in a year. Oof.

“What are you serving?”

“These? These are pelinkovac. Croatian. You want try one?”

I said yes. She passed me a shot, and I downed the bitter licorice-tasting liquid. It burned and hit me almost immediately. I had only had three drinks, but the 20-hour sleepless stay in the Paris airport, plus the jet lag, made my head spin.

I returned from my daze, and saw the bartender was staring at me even harder.

“Do you know you do not have to drink pelinkovac on – how you say English – Na X?”

“Oh, sorry, American way. Usually, we shoot shots, we don’t sip them.”

Na X = To shoot a drink

The Oracle entered the bar, and cheerfully shouted, “Hello!” Clearly, he was drunk. He greeted me with a massive bear hug. He is a big guy. I freaked out and stepped backwards.

“Woah, woah. It’s good to see you too. I’m vaccinated, so it’s OK. I guess.”

That was the most human contact I had had outside of my family in over a year. I wasn’t used to it.

We sat down and did not order a round together. We were beer geeks. Predictably, we looked for new beer ticks on the Untappd app. I rambled on about craft beer with him and the boss, while also rambling on about The Balkans with the beautiful bartender. By the end of the night, I had arranged a beer tasting with The Oracle for the following weekend at X Bar, another Zagreb craft beer bar. Ginger told me to return the next night, as it would be her last night in Zagreb before taking a summer job on the seaside.

Did I Survive My First Night Back In The Balkans?

Just after midnight, my friend and I staggered out of Craft Room.

“Where are we going after this,“ he asked.

“I’m dead from the trip – three days with no sleep. See you at X Bar next week for the tasting.”

We stumbled to Trg Bana Josipa. He waited for his late-night tram, and I continued to my apartment.

I took the elevator to the wrong floor, realized my mistake, and crawled up two more stories to the correct floor. For a moment, I fumbled with the keys in the lock, then whipped the door open and tried to close it gently. After lunging a few paces forward, I fell face-first on the bed with my clothes on.

Craft beer has survived in The Balkans after Covid, but I not sure if I have.