All Beer Blog

Tatra Beer

Tatra is a Polish beer, and a great one at that!  I don’t know that much about this beer other than the fact that it is made by Żywiec Brewery. I had never heard or seen it before so I had to buy it. They pride themselves upon being a mountain beer. It is named after the mountains in Southern Poland. They have a website, which has a really cool embedded flash, with little information about the beer and it is all in Polish.

The other bottles I have seen were all in Polish, they must be marketing to Americans because this bottle was all written in English. The beer itself was great. I was surprised with how much flavor it actually had. I was expecting it to taste like Żywiec Lager but it didn’t. The label on the beer is right, it’s beer with character. It poured a great golden color that was a bit darker than most Polish beers. The smell was of hops and malt, pretty strong. The taste was the same and again it was pretty strong. It is 6% alc/vol but you don’t notice any alcohol until you are finished with the beer. I think it tasted great, not like other Polish beers; was more distinct, definitely can taste the hops but it wasn’t bitter because of the malt.

Tatra had some thick and full head. I read some other reviews and they said that the head dissipated quickly. I had a 500ml bottle and this head stayed as it looks in the above picture the whole time I drank it. As you can see, it is a mixture of large and small bubbles. It left great lacing along the side of the glass as well.

All in all, I give this beer an 8/10! It is one of the better beer ratings; I really liked it and I am definitely going to get some more of it this upcoming weekend. I had it on Polish Constitution Day (May 3rd) in celebration! We also had a barbecue, it went great with ribs! Like I mentioned earlier, I had never heard of or seen it before here in Chicago so I don’t know where else you could find it, besides Poland that is. I would suggest that if you see it pick it up, probably sold in places with a lot of imported beer.

Na zdrowie!

Regards!

Żywiec Lager

Żywiec beer is great. Another Polish beer, Żywiec Lager is one of my favorites! They have been brewing beer since 1852 and were recently bought out by Heineken. They brew a wide assortment of beer including everything from lager to porter. Check out their website, they have some great commercials posted (they are in Polish).

The appearence is a clear, light gold color that looks just delicious.

The taste is full. For a Pilsner-style lager, it packs quite a punch with hints of grain and hops mixed together. The beer is 5.6% alc/vol; taste is quite overbearing but not unpleasant, making it a good, smooth drink. The bottles have a logo that appears on the back when it is just the right temperature to drink so you know when to open it.

This beer came in a 10pk of 500ml bottles. It’s a briefcase of beer, wish I could bring this to the office!

As you can see, the head is full and white. The bubbles, for the most part, are small but there are a few big ones in there. It dies down a bit but never disappears.

All in all, I give Żywiec Lager a 8/10! Here in Chicago it is easy to find, I went to a liquor store that has pretty much any Polish beer you could ever want; maybe I will post a review of it in the near future. It was under $15 for 10 pints! I must add, this beer goes great with wiejska kielbasa (spiced Polish sausage). I suggest you put this at the top of your beer drinking list along side Okocim!

Regards!

Na zdrowie!