No one knows I’m in Belgrade.  None of my friends know.  They all think I’m returning next week.

It’s the last week of August.  Propelled by the repression of two years in secluded COVID lockdown, I spent the past summer in Croatia and Slovenia in an excess of partying and socializing.  But it reached its limit, and I need to be in isolation again.  Now I’m staying alone at an AirBnb in the Dorcol neighborhood.  By coincidence, it’s across the street from an apartment I lived in almost five years ago,

I searched for all my familiar craft beer haunts of Belgrade.  But two years have passed, and craft beer has changed in Belgrade.

How Craft Beer Changed In Belgrade

During the year of the pandemic, half of the beer bars in Belgrade closed.  Most never opened again.  Brkati Pub, already struggling through the summers, was finally gone.  Tavan, a favorite alternative rock and beer place, was empty.  Even one of Belgrade’s first craft beer bars, Miners Pub, after its original owner left it for Dogma Brewery, was completely shuttered.

But unexpectedly, I saw Dogma beer sold in local kiosks, a strange thing for craft beer.  After the pandemic, Belgrade, and craft beer, was different.

Indeed, there’s one new craft beer bar only 10 minutes from my Airbnb: Domaci Pub.  I walk there on a Wednesday evening, alone.  As I approach the place, I think: I’ve been here before?  This looks familiar.

Two years ago, one week before I flew to the USA and was forced to stay due to the COVID pandemic, I visited this same bar.  It was one of three family-owned craft beer bars named Srpska Kuca Piva (Serbian Beer House.)  One of their locations I visited frequently was in Vracar, near my apartment.  But I had gone to this location in the Karaburma neighborhood just once.  And now, never again; it changed owners.

Domaci Pub Is Not Srpska Kuca Piva

At the entrance, a new sign for Domaci Pub awkwardly shares space with the faded Srpska Kuca Piva sign.  Also, its Google Map location has not changed yet.  I plug in the new name into Google Maps and send an address change request.  Certainly, Serbia is more Balkan than Croatia – things move slower here.

At the entrance, a new sign for Domaci Pub awkwardly shares space with the faded Srpska Kuca Pivo sign.

Inside, it’s empty.  In Serbian, I ask the young bartender for a new beer I don’t recognize, Mjolnir NEIPA.  It’s from a brewery in Novi Sad named HOG (Hammer Of God.)  Some Serbs have a thing for Scandinavian mythology.  He looks pleasantly surprised and says many people don’t like that one.  The NEIPAs are “too strong” for local tastes.

I tell him I’m always up for a new beer, regardless of the style.  However, I really do like NEIPAs.  And this Mjolnir is good, more like the old-school NEIPAs, before they became too sweet and hazy.

My response animates him.  Consequently, he starts describing each of the bars 10 taps in detail.  I struggle to follow his rapid Serbian.  Suddenly, I blurt out that, despite the summer heat, my next beer could be Crow Brewery’s dark, heavy Black Widow Russian Imperial Stout.

What Changed In Belgrade

He looks at me curiously.  “You speak English, don’t you?”

“You figured that out pretty quickly.”

“Your good accent and your knowledge of our local beer tricked me.  I thought you might be Macedonian, or Slovenian maybe.  Not bad.”

After he switched to English, there was no reason to continue in Serbian.  His English studies in school were elementary.  But like many young people in Europe, he learned far more English thanks to the Internet.  Illegally downloaded American movies, funny Youtube clips, endless memes on Instagram – it’s how I wish I could have absorbed a foreign language.  Instead, during my adolescence, when the Internet moved at the speed of glacier, I had ugly Senora Puta Vieja screaming Spanish verb conjugations at me.

Again, in English, he went through the beers’ descriptions.  I listened, quite surprised to hear all the hype – IBUs, hop origins, fermentation – rattled off from someone who had never been to an English-speaking country.

So, what had changed in Belgrade in those two years while I was stuck in the USA?

China happened.  And I’m not talking about COVID.

But Serbian Beer Is Chinese Beer

“We should fully implement the consensus and outcomes of the Summit of China and Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) to push for constant new progress in China-CEEC cooperation…  China is a great friend of Serbia and the Serbia-China relations are at our best in history. Serbia is very proud of its iron-clad friendship with China.”

On June 21st of last year, those countries’ respective leaders had a conversation by phone.  These words were just a small part of Serbia’s willingness in recent years to increase trade and relations with China.  By many accounts, China is now a closer ally of Serbia than Russia.

One of Serbia’s largest craft breweries, Dogma Brewery, now sells and distributes its beer in China.  Likewise, a Chinese craft brewery did a collaboration with Dogma.  The first Chinese craft beer I’ve ever drank was in Serbia, the Calculator Cold IPA, brewed together with Bionic Brew Microbrewery from Shenzen.  It was clean, crisp – like a West Coast IPA – which has become Dogma’s flavor profile, regardless of the IPAs different name .

“It’s OK.  But Dogma is like Kabinet [Brewery] now.  They have a formula and a big name, and they don’t change.  Different name on the beer; almost same beer.  Most of their resources are spent exporting beer to China.  And Chinese people doesn’t know good craft beer…yet.”

“I can come back next week when you rotate your taps.  To try those for myself.”

“I won’t be here.  I’m normally at Cigla I Krigla.”

“Christ. That’s like the vukojebina part of Belgrade.”

“Hahaha. Yes, it’s fucking far away.  But my boss there and the one here they are friends, so they hire me for a few weeks.”

“So I will have to order new Dogma beer from someone else?”

“Yeah.  Sorry, brate.”

Where is Srpska Kuca Piva?

One month later, after staying in various Airbnbs around Belgrade, I signed a contract for an apartment in Crveni Krst.  I recognized the neighborhood.  Only one block from my new place was the original Srpska Kuca Piva.  I could get a good beer tonight.

Or so I thought.

I checked the address: Milesevska 56.  Yes.  But Srpska Kuca Piva was no more.  The traditional Serbian café – in the family for three generations – had been razed to the ground.  In its place a new apartment duplex was being built.  In front, fresh sod covered the muddy ground.  A glittering iron gate surrounded the property.

How quickly Belgrade changed.

For a tour of the best craft beer bars and breweries in Belgrade click here.