Let’s be honest. Tavan Beertija is not a nice place. It is a tiny, underground hole-in-the-wall dive with craft beer. That’s why I like it.
Despite being small, Serbia’s craft beer scene has quite a variety of venues. People who prefer popular, busy locations with the typical bare industrial look have Samo Pivo and Majstor Za Pivo. Bars outside of the center, like Pivopija, Pivski Zabavnik and Srpska Kuca Piva, cater to their neighborhoods, and everyone will know your name by your second visit there. For a rougher, more dive bar atmosphere, there’s Miners and Tavan Beertija.
But this is far from a complete list of all the craft beer bars in Belgrade.
Tavan Beertija: Rock’n’Roll And Russian Imperial Stout
Tavan has two things which set it apart from other craft beer bars in Belgrade. It regularly hosts free, open homebrewing events, and it has live music concerts. Often, these two things happen at the same time. I visited Tavan on one of these fun nights.
A friend had brewed a Russian Imperial Stout. This in itself is quite an event for Serbia. Serbian craft breweries usually just produce IPAs, APAs and a dark Porter or a Stout. Only in the past year have some breweries started producing bigger, fuller, high ABV dark beers. And just Kabinet, Serbia’s largest, well-financed craft brewery, has released a barrel-aged beer.
The beer was the event; the music made it better.
I descended the stairs into the dingy, bunker basement bar. The patrons were divided between the beer geeks at the bar guarding the Russian Imperial keg, and the musicians at a table with an amplifier rig. Tavan’s owner had set up a permanent amp and guitar rig, allowing anyone – regardless of whether there is a concert – to jam in the bar.
That night, local harmonica and guitar genius, Sick Mick, was performing. He was accompanied by a girl singing standard rock and pop tunes. They were not really performing, but just jamming for their amusement. The musicians seemed afraid to try the big beer, as most had the owner’s house beer, a light English Bitter.
The geeks at the bar were all drinking the Russian Imperial Stout. By the looks of them, they had already had quite a few. My buddy, upon seeing me enter, slapped me a high-five, then immediately staggered behind the bar to pour me his beer. His face glowed: both from alcohol and pride.
“I ran it through a Jim Beam bottle for filtering. So alcohol maybe too high, at 13.5%, but compare it with the Black Widow…”
It was clearly heavier than Serbia’s two other big beers: Crow Brewery’s Black Widow and Kabinet’s Olga. The smell was like chocolate-soaked leather and the bourbon essence was delicious. When you don’t have that much to compare to, there are obvious winners. This RIS takes my vote in Serbia.
Too bad this would be my first and last time drinking it.
Raleigh Bruce Music Improv Jam
Heavy booze needs heavy tunes. The kids had stopped play their pop rock standards, and the guitar and amp were free. I took the guitar and started with a few blues and soul tunes. Then someone requested shouted – hey, you’re American – play some American rock’n’roll and country music.
The owner offered me shots of strong whiskey in exchange for the performance. First came Lynard Skynard, then Bob Dylan, then Willie Nelson, then Johnny Cash… When the shots started taking their toll, the owner ordered pizzas from next door to refuel us for another round.
The bourbon whisky, country tunes and local food could be in any old dirty honky-tonk in small town America. But the homebrew is from Serbia, and this is a Belgrade craft beer bar.
