Besides Belgrade, Nis is the city I have spent the most time at in Serbia. Southern Serbs are much like American Southerners: friendly, laid-back, and always ready to pull your leg (with a joke.) Spicy peppers grow abundantly in the hot climate, and locals love mixing it in their barbeque.
In 2021, when I went to the 6th Nis Craft Beer Festival, I enjoyed the food as much as the beer.
After Belgrade’s craft beer scene grew, other cities in Serbia followed. Novi Sad is almost on par with Belgrade, yet Nis is close behind. In 2016, in the second weekend of September, they began their own craft beer festival. It has gone on for the past five years, not counting two missed years due to the COVID pandemic.
I contacted my friend, Nicky, whom I’ve known since my first visit to Serbia. He agreed to host me while I was there for the festival. A few years had passed since I’d seen him, and we were both a little older and a little slower.
Serbia’s Spicy South: Nis Craft Beer Festival
Before the festival, I visited the two craft beer bars in Nis.
Although a handful of bars serve craft beer in Nis, these are the only two with a significant number of unique taps and bottles. Ministarstvo is, in fact, Nis’s own microbrewery. They were hosting the craft beer festival.
And today, that was a problem.
Since they were hosting the festival, their limited staff couldn’t work in two places at once. Ministarsto Beer Bar was temporarily closed. A sign on their locked door apologized for the inconvenience. (Don’t worry! There’s beer; We’re at Banovina Cultural Center!) Well, there’s another option. I walked three blocks south to Pivnica Berta.
Don’t worry! There’s beer; We’re at Banovina Cultural Center!
Pivnica Berta
Pivnica Berta shares a building with Bloom Inn. With its exposed wooden frame exterior, the hotel looks like a bad knockoff of a medieval British Pub. Meanwhile, Berta’s outdoor beer garden is all modern. Bamboo fences surround the patio, while a ornate wooden gazebo and an electric retractable roof mounted on a steel frame provide shade. Today, it was cool and overcast, so the roof was closed.
First, I scanned the menu, hoping to find something from Ministarstvo. Yet despite being only three blocks away, their beer was not at Berta. Oddly, Crna Ovca Brewery, from the northern city of Novi Sad, was available on tap. I had their 69 APA, which gets its name from its ABV (so they claim.) It had improved significantly in the two years since I’d last tried it.
After that quick beer, I went to the Student Cultural Center. The Center is in the heart of Nis, beside the Nis River, just in front of the old fortress. Inside the center is a courtyard, Banovina, where the festival is.
While I was walking to the festival, Nicky messaged me. He was running late. For the time being, I decided to enjoy the festival by myself. Under an arched entrance to the courtyard, an attendant asked for negative proof of COVID. My American COVID vaccination card did the trick. They let me inside.
Craft Beer In Banovina
The interior stone courtyard was quite small, but there was space for 10 beer stands, two dozen tables and a music stage. A local Irish punk band, sounding much like Dropkick Murphy’s, was blaring away on the lit-up stage. I wanted to buy a beer and listen to the band. When I approached the Ministvarsto Pivara stand and pulled out Serbian Dinar, they denied me. They pointed back to the entrance. I had to buy tokens, then exchange them for beer.
Annoying. Will I spend all of those tokens? I sure hope so.
With a thousand Dinar in tokens, I returned to Ministarstvo’s stand and drank two of their beers. Nis’s only craft brewery is quite good. The festival had their most accessible brews, Ministarstvo APA and Dripac Imperial IPA. They told me that their brewpub would be open tomorrow, Sunday. Then I could try their big special stouts.
The tall tables, scattered around the courtyard, had space for drinks but not sitting. Most were full. But, near the music stage, I saw one with just two people. I asked if I could place my beer on the table. Obligingly, they said yes, and invited me to drink with the usual introduction of, “Where are you from?”
We chatted about the band, the beer, and my life in Serbia. While we were talking, Nicky showed up with his sister and a friend. We found ourselves a separate table to stand at.
Although Ministarstvo is the local brewery, I found myself gravitating to the Crna Ovca stand. Their 69 IPA and their pale ale are hoppy enough. Plus a few free pours from familiar faces sweeted the deal. Nicky was jealous of my free beers, but as he said, “I’m a pussy, and I can’t drink as much as you anyway. Fucking alcoholic American.”
Black Magic In Ministarstvo Brewery
The next morning I was in rough shape. I managed to join Nicky for a morning coffee at the Nis Fortress. The flashbacks of my first time there, in 2009, cleared up any bad feelings I had from the previous night. Amazing what a good cup of coffee can do.
Finally, before I caught my bus back to Belgrade, we went to Ministarsto Pivara. Unfortunately, although the brewpub hosted the beer festival, they would not accept my remaining tokens from last night as currency.
“Try bringing them next year. Probably, we’ll use the same ones.”
The South is relaxed.
I finished my trip to Nis with a fantastic coffee stout, Ministarstvo’s Black Magic. Black Magic did have real coffee in it. It kept me awake as I dragged myself to the bus station. Once I slumped on the bus, I found an empty seat in the back, then passed out until Belgrade.
