Starosloviensky Pivovar, Where the Foam Comes Free

So there I was, all ready to start writing a post about Slovak wine. I even have a glass of wine in my hand, for Goodness sake. But I remember someone saying to me the other day I hadn’t written enough about places to go for a drink in Bratislava yet (which is surprising, because I like drinking a lot) and this place seemed the obvious candidate, namely because I spent an evening there last week getting wasted.

Inside the Pivobar…

So there we go. Starosloviensky Pivovar is a place that sticks in your memory – boozily veering between the sophisticated and the raucous, but with a beer selection that most locals say is better than Meštiansky Pivobar and with food that’s certainly way better than Slovak Pub (to equate it to another boozy Bratislava joint serving food).

Starosloviensky Pivovar, if you still have time for a beer having uttered its name, is on Vysoká, which is the street that loops around the back of Obchodná and comes out again by the Austria Trend Hotel. The location is great. Vysoká is an infinitely nicer street than Obchodná on which to hang and, what with the Film Hotel on the same block has a kind of antiquated Broadway-in-the-1920s feel to it. It’s got an outside area of decking (nice when the temperature gets into the plusses) and big rustic wooden tables inside.

The beer selection? Great – the delicious hoppy Stupavar, brewed just north of Bratislava, and the Pressburg – particularly the weisenbier and the radler – were two very complex beers – a relief from the Zlatý Bažant-dominated beer scene in Slovakia. I can recommend it as a decent after-work (or, if you’re a tourist, even after-breakfast) spot for a drink in this area of town (compared to the other pivovars in Bratislava this one is more laid-back and popular with a younger crowd) but what got me was that, for a place that has its own brewery, they have no idea how to pour beer. When the first glasses came with pena (foam) we queried it, got the response that the barman did not know how to pour drinks, and promptly got served two more with equally foamy heads. Foam, let me tell you, that represented nearly a quarter of the glass. A way of economising? Bad service? Whatever the reason, be warned that for every five glasses of beer you buy, one will be foam. And despite this I liked the place.

Location: Vysoká 15

Open: Until 11pm

An article about Bratislava’s Pivobars