Poland's craft beer movement developed rapidly from around 2010 and Krakow is one of its stronger cities. Kazimierz holds the best concentration of bars worth visiting, with a mix of dedicated beer bars, general bars with good tap selections, and a few brewery tap rooms. The Old Town has bars but they trend expensive and tourist-oriented; five minutes south into Kazimierz and the prices and atmosphere shift noticeably.

Polish Craft Breweries to Know

Browar Lubicz: a Krakow-based brewery operating from a renovated 19th-century industrial building near Kazimierz. Their tap room is one of the better places to drink in the city and the beers are consistently good — IPAs, wheat beers, and seasonal releases.

Pracownia Piwa: another Krakow craft producer, smaller and more experimental. Worth looking for on tap at specialist beer bars.

Beyond local, the Polish craft scene produces well-regarded IPAs, Baltic porters, and sour beers from Warsaw-area breweries (Pinta, Artezan) and Silesian producers. Any decent beer bar will have a rotating selection.

Bars Worth Knowing in Kazimierz

Alchemia (ul. Estery 5, Kazimierz): one of Krakow's most famous bars — dark, candlelit, mismatched furniture, the atmosphere of a slightly decayed Central European salon. On Plac Nowy's western side. It has been here long enough to feel institutional rather than trendy.

Singer (ul. Estery 20): named for the sewing machines that form the tables. Small, intimate, excellent cocktails as well as beer. One of the best bars in Kazimierz.

Pijalnia Wodki i Piwa (multiple locations): a chain concept — Polish vodka shots and beer at very low prices in no-frills surroundings. Shot of Zubrowka costs 4–5 PLN. Extremely popular with the stag weekend demographic; also popular with local students. Not the most atmospheric environment but honest about what it is.

Forum Przestrzenie (ul. Konopnickiej 28, Podgorze side of the river): a summer-season bar inside the derelict Hotel Forum — an unfinished communist-era brutalist hotel on the Vistula bank. The building was never completed; the bar operates on its terrace and in the ground floor. One of the most distinctive drinking venues in Poland. Summer only.

What to Order

Craft beer on tap: ask what's local. Most good bars will have at least one Krakow or Malopolska-region brewery on.

Żubrówka z sokiem jabłkowym (Zubrowka with apple juice): the national cocktail. Available everywhere.

Mead (miod pitny): Polish mead has a long tradition and some bars in Kazimierz carry a small selection. Worth trying if you haven't had it.

Prices

A craft beer in Kazimierz: 12–18 PLN. A cocktail: 20–30 PLN. These are substantially lower than Western European equivalents. A full evening including food and drinks is achievable for 100–150 PLN.

Our Take

Alchemia for the atmosphere, Singer for the cocktails, Browar Lubicz if you want to drink craft beer at the source. Forum Przestrzenie in summer, standing on a brutalist terrace above the Vistula, is one of the stranger and better evenings Krakow offers.