LjubiBinging: Craft Beer In Ljubljana

The first two days in Ljubljana were boring I detoxed and spent the time working. Slovenia has many craft breweries, but many of them are not in Ljubljana itself. So I planned a good pub crawl of the city.

The week did not go as planned. Wednesday afternoon starting a Ljubibinging bender that didn’t end until the following Monday.

During the pandemic, I had seriously missed live music. While I was searching online for concerts in Ljubljana. I came across a band, Happy Ol’ McWeasel, playing that Wednesday night. They were described on the website as “Folk Punk.” I gave them a listen, and they were essentially Slovenia’s answer to The Pogues, Dropkick Murphys or Flogging Mollys. Call it “Celtic Punk,” or “Irish Punk,” or “Folk Punk” or whatever. It’s the kind of music I like to drink to. A lot.

Two hours before the show began, I went to , Hala Gala, the music venue, to buy a ticket. Hala Gala is in the Metelkova Art Complex which I had heard about. Metelkova Mesto is several abandoned buildings which have been turned into music venues. There is a club for every music taste: metal, punk, hip-hop, reggae, EDM. The spaces among these venues are covered in street art: graffiti, statues, sculptures and more. Police have tried to shut it down for years for operating semi-legally, but it continues staying open – even through the pandemic. That week, I ended every night there.

With time to kill, I walked 15 minutes to Ljubljana’s little big beer shop, Ze V Redu Primoz.

Ljubljana’s Little Big Craft Beershop: Ze V Redu Primoz

Ze V Redu Primoz sits on Trubarjeva Street, which is known as the alternative “funky” part of Ljubljana. At 7pm in the evening, it looked quiet. One person sat on a stool at a single table by the entrance. A few others sat around on the empty plastic KEYkegs which are common in Europe. No sitting was allowed inside. Although nevermind. There’s no space for sitting inside because it’s full of beers!

The owner, Damir, was at the lone table. He reminded me to wear my mask as he invited me inside to take my order at the register (it is a beer shop, not a bar.) He said these were strange times. Normally, Ze V Redu has crowds, bands, food trucks and other events going on in the street, but, hey, it’s COVID and Slovenia is very strict. The shop was debuting Estonia’s Pohjala Brewery, so I ordered their pink Berliner Weisse. Damir and I got to chatting, and he, like the beer geeks I meet in Croatia, knew of Pivoslavija, but thought it was a Serb and not an American.

The beer geeking began.

Damir loved to talk about craft beer. The shop was his, and Lajbah Pub & Restaurant was his as well. He showed me a beer Ze V Redu Primoz had just received which was a collaboration from Britain’s Wilderness Brewery and one of my own St. Louis breweries, Perennial Artisan Ales. I asked about the Slovenian breweries I knew of: Bevog (technically, Austrian), Tektonik and Reservoir Dogs. At the mention of Reservoir Dogs, Damir told me about a Blues & Brews Festival they were hosting that weekend in the mountain town of Nova Gorica. He sent their management an e-mail to see if they could get me to the festival somehow.

Balkan hospitality still exists in Slovenia.

“You’re going to the concert alone?”

“Yes, traveling alone never stopped me from making friends before.”

“My friends here are going. You can join them.”

Naturally, his friends drank good beer. They warned me that the best I would be able to drink at Hala Gala was Czech Kozel. “It’s that or Slovenia’s ‘Pride and Joy,’ – Lasko. Ugh.”

I got a road beer: Bevog Brewery’s Black-Footed Ferret Triple IPA, part of series called Extinction Is Forever that’s meant to raise awareness about threatened animals. I reckoned it was strong enough to knock me into an extinct state where I would drink any swill available at the concert. Not drinking when Irish Punk music is playing would be criminal.

Happy Ol’ McWeasel: Folk Punk

We entered Hala Gala right before Happy Ol’ McWeasel took the stage. The security told me not to worry about the vaccination card I showed them. I was still uncomfortable about being in “superspreader” events like concerts, so we hung towards the back where it was less crowded. But after a few rounds, with the alcohol taking control, we moved to the front. The band was throwing beers into the crowd!

Soon, people started climbing on stage to grab the beers, and that’s when the crowdsurfing started.

Happy Ol’ McWeasel mostly played their own songs, but they sang in English, so I was able to catch on to the lyrics. And they had plenty of covers from their Traditional and Punk Irish influences: Dropkick Murphy’s, The Dubliners, The Pogues and Flogging Mollys.

Although I wasn’t expecting their punk cover of “Cotton-Eyed Joe.” After that, it got drunk… and weird.