Budapest Beer Week

We chose to celebrate our birthdays this year at Budapest Beer Week (BPBW) from 24th – 26th May. Budapest Beer Week is an international craft beer festival in the heart of Budapest, Hungary. Already at their second edition, this festival caught our attention last year with their international line up and excellent selection of breweries. Plus, we were curious to discover the Hungarian craft beer scene which has risen during the past couple of years.

THE ORGANIZATION

The idea of BPBW came from three beer enthusiasts: Peter Pazinczar, Marton Sefcsik and Tibor Rebak. They all have roots in Budapest and work in different areas of the beer industry. You can find out more about them here.

The festival was spread over two days, Friday and Saturday. One tasting session per day lasting six hours. Each tasting session with an all you can taste concept for a fixed price. Limited taps were offered during each tasting session, ensuring you would try different beers on each day. Individual tickets were available for each tasting session or you could also get a combined ticket for both days.

Ticket prices varied greatly depending on the moment you purchased it as they had many pre-sales activities. Let’s say that the earlier you purchase it, the better! We bought our tickets quite early for a single tasting sessions and paid about € 54 each.

On Sunday they hosted the encore session with the leftover beers right on the same location, but without the brewers there in person. The entry was free for this day while the beers were available under a token system.

The ticket includes a cute tasting glass from which you could get small tasting quantities of about 10 cl, but the actual glass size is bigger. As this is an all you can taste concept, you could just ask the brewer to pour you some more beer if you liked it! Generally, most brewers were quite generous and poured you more than the indicated 10 cl.

Lastly, live music events and after parties with the best underground bands and DJs from the region were included on the agenda to get the party started. 

THE LOCATION

The festival was organized at Dürer Kert. It is one of the best live music venues in town right in the heart of City Park. A maximum 800 guests was let in daily to ensure everybody had an excellent party time. 

The main space used for the tasting sessions was the garden, but with 60 breweries this year they also had more within the buildings – which turned out to be useful when it rained for a bit during our tasting session. The garden was quite charming with tables laid out under the ancient trees, hammocks, swing canopies and even an old, transformed Volán bus. Perfect to hang out and relax with a good beer in hand.

THE BEER

More than 200 beers on tap. We tasted all styles, including many rarities. Most represented were all kinds of sour beers, plus hop heavy styles. 60 breweries were attending this year, with a good mix of local Hungarian breweries and the rest of the world, with the UK as featured country.

Our coup de coeur from the festival was Tommie Sjef Wild Ales from The Netherlands. We really recommend them to any beer lover out there. They represent the wild side of fermentation, specializing in wood-fermented and aged products.

Overall, the festival makes it a great place to network and build friendships with other craft beer fanatics, brewers and breweries. The atmosphere was genuine, with an international crowd coming from all over the world to try some good beer and have fun.

Check out some more pictures from the event below.