Thursday 20th February 2014
Bob Thompson
This restaurant and bar is the only brew pub in Moldova's capital, and the country for that matter. It is well located on the road between the main station and the city centre.
I was one of a group of eleven and we had arranged to meet at the Beer House at lunch time for some beers. Soon all of our party had arrived and the obliging waiter arranged a large table so that we could sit together.
Whilst this was all being put together I took a look around. Walking in from the street the first thing you notice is the semi-circular bar with the burnished copper brewery located behind. There were some tables to be found on the right but most of the accommodation was on the left in several rooms.
The decor is an amazing collection of styles and themes.
The walls on the right are painted with scenes of old towns from the Middle Ages period and depict many half-timbered buildings. Here the furniture is leather with a number of comfortable sofas.
The bar is very nice, being made of varnished wood. However the stools around it provide a complete contrast, looking a bit like left-over props from a 1960s James Bond film; very strange. Please see photograph.
We were seated in a room with wooden rustic furniture. Here the main wall painting showed a medieval knight with two other men drinking what looks like wine, judging by the amphorae being filled by a servant girl. This is actually quite appropriate as Moldova is a big producer of wine and in the old Soviet Union the quality of it was regarded as the best of all the republics.
However there was a "window" in this room that was an illuminated light box with a modern stained glass design that was in total contrast to rest of the decoration. The booths were equally strange as they had odd muslin curtains that would provide very little privacy and I noticed that the seat coverings were in the same sixties "cocktail lounge" style as the bar stools.
Thank goodness for the beer is all I can say, after looking at and photographing the decor. And it was very good indeed with four separate styles represented.
There was Blonde, Brown and Extra (6.5%). The latter is a sort of Bockbier. What was good about this pub was that all of these beers were available in filtered and unfiltered forms. The last type of beer was a wheat beer, which was presented in its natural unfiltered state. A broad cross-section was consumed and they were all very highly regarded by the group and me also, although I passed on the wheat beer.
Whilst we imbibed these beers we consumed a good variety of "beer snacks" that came in many varieties. The cold meats were extremely good and there were two sorts of hard cheese that thought were a lot better than the norm in this part of the Europe. My favourite were the small fried fish, like whitebait.
So, there are a number of good reasons to visit Beer House although you will need to wear blinkers should you be a student of or qualified in interior design.
Important Information:
Beer House, Boulevardul Constantin Negruzzi 6/2, Chişinău, Moldova. MD-2001
Tel: +373 (0) 22 275 627
Open: Monday-Sunday 11.00-23.00
At least 8 trolleybus routes pass by or close to the pub. Unfortunately it is complicated by several operating on circular (one-way) routes with others stopping in nearby streets. Basically, you need a route map.
The pub is around ten minutes walk from the station and about fifteen from the city centre.
Chişinău station is served by a daily train from Bucureşti (Roumania) which takes 13 hours overnight. There is another daily train to and from Odessa (Ukraine) that is not overnight.
Trains on specific days of the week, normally every two, operate to Moscow (two routes) and St Petersburg.