Riga for craft beer enthusiasts
The capital of Latvia is a charming destination for a few days vacation or a weekend getaway any time of the year. The Old Town, with its narrow cobblestone streets, historical buildings, small cafes and restaurants, is very popular among tourists, but there is a lot more to see in Riga outside the old town. In this post we don’t really focus on sightseeing though, but on craft beer instead! Craft beer boom is strong in Latvia, and there are several microbreweries in Riga alone. In this post we first shortly introduce the yearly Latvia Beer Fest, and the craft beer pubs and breweries that together form Riga Beer District.
Latvia Beer Fest
We happened to be in Riga in May 2018 at the time of Latvia Beer Fest, and participated it as press. The yearly festival, that has been organized since 2015, is Latvia’s own ‘Oktoberfest’. It gathers together beer lovers from all over the country and abroad, dozens of breweries from Latvia and beyond, and lasts from Wednesday to Sunday (in 2018). The festival venue, Vermanes Garden, is a beautiful park area next to Riga Old Town, and on top of beer stalls there are concerts and other cultural program, a craftsmen market and of course food stalls offering everything from snacks to full meals. The atmosphere was laid-back and easy-going, people seemed to be in a good mood, and we saw no disruptive behavior. Children are also welcome to this festival, and there was a large children zone with play areas and bouncy castles.
The price of an entrance ticket for 2018 festival was just 2 €, and the beer prices were affordable also. You could get bulk lager beers with 1 € per 0,2 l, and the more special craft beers were a bit more expensive. In most of the stalls it was possible to taste the special beers before buying a glass. We focused on small breweries that make ales, and tasted some excellent APA’s, IPA’s, Wheat Ales and Saisons. One of our favorites was Saules Duriens APA by Malduguns Microbrewery. This 5 years old brewery from Rauna, a small town roughly 100 km northeast from Riga, has a wide variety of taste ales and also quite some experimental beers like chili-cocoa porter.
Riga Beer District
Riga Beer District is a wonderful and unique joint effort of 10 pubs, gastro pubs and brewpubs in central Riga. It’s a 2,5 km long route with also guided tours, and you can choose your favorites from over 100 craft beer varieties from Latvia and other Baltic countries. Their goal is to ‘promote the diversity of flavors offered by small craft beer breweries to both Latvia’s beer lovers and visitors from near and far’.
History of Riga Beer District
Back in 19th century, there were three large breweries operating in this exact same part of the town. First one of them, Kunzendorff Brewery was established in 1796, was in full bloom in early 20th century, having warehouses not only in Latvia but also in Estonia, Russia and Ukraine. The other giants were C. L. Kymmel Brewery and C. Stritzky Brewery. The early 20th century wars changed pretty much everything in Baltic countries, and led also to the end of existence of these breweries. Two latter ones were closed at the time of the First World War, and Kunzendorff struggled until the Soviet occupation in 1940.
The new era of craft beer has brought new life to the neighborhood of these former breweries. According to Riga Beer District websites the first new brewery to open its doors was Valmiermuiža Brewery’s Beer Embassy in Riga. It was soon followed by smaller breweries and bars; Labietis Brewery, Ziemeļu Enkurs Brewery, the beer pubs Taka and Walters & Grapa, bar Vest, Old Brewery Arts Bar Autentika, and heavy metal friendly Zobens un Lemess bar. Few hundred meters towards the old town opened the Alķīmiķis pub and brewery, and also Kanepes Culture Center, that serves beer with arts, is part of the Beer District.
A tour in Riga Beer District
Riga, as a home town of our travel partner airBaltic, is sort of a home base also for us this year. In August we had a one day stopover in the city, and made a self-guided tour around the Riga Beer District. Tip for your tour; take care that you have the pubs and breweries on a map before you head out, as not all of them are too easy to find. There are orange-colored Beer District leaflets with a map and some info available in at least part of the places, and the Beer District website is helpful as well. If you’d like to learn more about the Beer District as you go, book a guided tour with craft beer tastings and snacks via the website.
We started from Alkimikis (Lāčplēša 12 ), brewpub that is situated closest to the city center. We had visited this friendly restaurant also earlier when staying in Riga, and really like the beers and the atmosphere, and their food is delicious also. Alkimikis has four own beer varieties permanently on tap, and a brew-masters selection of three beers changing every season, plus one beer that is changing every month. Next stop of the route is the Kanepes Culture Center (Skolas Street 15), just two blocks away, but we basically just walked past it, focusing more on the actual breweries on our tour. According to Beer District website, the Culture Center has live music performances by local and international artists, and a beer selection of 8 tabs and 20 more varieties in bottles.
Two blocks northeast, you’ll find Vest (Stabu Street 1 ), a restaurant and bar with roughly 50 varieties of beer from Latvia and other Baltic countries and some from Scandinavia as well. We didn’t visit Vest, but it looked quite fancy actually. On weekends it’s home to late-hour parties with music from vinyl records, and at times it turn to a sports bar. On the other side of the block we ran into one of the sites that Riga Beer District is about, the premises of C.L. Kymmel Brewery that operated from 1850 until the WWI. Autentika (Bruņinieku Street 2 ) is an arts and event bar, operating in one of the old brewery buildings. It’s not a brewpub though, and actually at the time of our visit the selection of beers was pretty limited. We stopped for one pint to enjoy the environment and the laid-back feeling of this pub.
The walk further northeast towards another old brewery site takes you past the handsome buildings of Riga’s first hospital and some old villas. The former C. Stritzky brewing complex is nowadays home to Valmiermuiža Beer Embassy in Riga (Aristīda Briāna Street 9a). Their gastro pub and shop has wide selection of beer, more than 100 varieties in total, and the beer kitchen serves Latvian cuisine tailored to be enjoyed with beer. Their own brews are mostly lagers, but they had some Valmiermuiža ales available in bottles. For craft beer enthusiasts like us, Labietis around the corner is a small piece of heaven. This microbrewery makes delicious artisan beers and organizes workshops where you can watch the beer being made and of course enjoy the delicacies on site. Prices of their tasty ales in tap begin from 3 euros per 0,5 liter. There is a cozy terrace outside the brewpub, and when we visited on Thursday evening, it was pretty full of beer enthusiasts, and there was also some kind of a cycling & beer competition ongoing, with one of the drinking points in Labietis. Surely looked like tons of fun, but maybe a bit hazardous sport…
On out way back towards town, we walked past Zobens un Lemess (Aristīda Briāna Street 10), a bar that claims to offer heavy metal and strong beer. It’s a meeting point for friends of darker sounds and craft beer, with six beer taps and 18 varieties in bottles. Around the corner is Walter’s and Grapa (Miera Street 19), a pub serving craft beers from Baltic breweries. This small bar, built and opened by three friends, is home to parties and life music performances, and serves beer from Latvia and beyond from 8 taps and has selection of over 40 bottled varieties. Taka (Miera Street 10) is another craft beer oriented pub, serving the products of the smallest breweries, sometimes even varieties that don’t even have a name yet. There are also some live performances of alternative music, film screenings and board games.
Our last stop was Ziemeļu Enkurs (Matīsa Street 8), a small brewery and brewpub on historical site of the former Kuntzendorff Brewery. Ziemelu manufactures artisan beer with only natural quality ingredients, and the pub, that is the newest of Riga Beer District, serves also meals to be enjoyed with beer. There is a cozy roof-top terrace with views over the former brewery buildings. It was a nice venue for enjoying some late night ales on our way back to our hostel.
Next time when in Riga, you know where to go for the best craft beer experiences in town!
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