The 10 Best Craft Beer Bars in Budapest

Head to Élesztő if you're curious about Hungarian craft beers and what Budapest outside the city center looks like. Élesztő serves a rotating set of 25 beers on tap, ranging from light crowd-pleasers to sour IPAs. The former glass manufacturing plant is an ideal venue for a craft beer bar: the century-old brick walls and the exposed fermentation tanks exude a sense of artisanship and give the (false) impression that an actual brewery is on the premises. Butcher's Kitchen, a food stall inside the courtyard, serves excellent pastrami and pulled pork sandwiches to help slow the rise in blood alcohol levels. (Trafó, the building next door, is Budapest's leading contemporary arts center with regular dance, music, and English-language theater performances.)

Located inside Budapest's party district, Hopaholic is a snug craft beer bar known for its dizzying range of international craft beers. They source bottled beers from more than 250 microbreweries around the world and there's also ten rotating beers on tap. Do you feel like downing a cloudy, yeasty hefeweizen? Perhaps an imperial stout from Denmark sporting a 10 percent ABV? Or, rather, a tart and fruity Moldavian-Hungarian lambic beer? Not a problem. The bartenders will provide samples to taste if you feel overwhelmed by all the options.

Gravity is one of the few Budapest craft beer bars where the brewery itself is located on the premises. This means the taproom, which is inside the brick-walled basement of a pre-war building, abuts the production plant fitted with steel tanks, hoses, and electric dashboards (there's a see-through door). The beers span approachable New England IPAs, rye beers, and hefty imperial stouts with double-digit alcohol levels.

With a crowd of male-heavy imbibers and walls blanketed in band stickers, Hops is a divey-looking craft beer bar within Budapest's party district. The moment you realize that this isn't your average dive bar is when you catch a glimpse of the more than 200 types of bottles stacked in the fridge. It's this extensive selection that makes Hops a pilgrimage-site for Budapest craft beer fans (of sour beers alone there are thirty options).

KEG is a below-ground craft beer bar in Budapest’s increasingly fashionable Újbuda neighborhood. The place is just off Bartók Béla Boulevard, the main artery of the area, inside a remodeled brick-arched basement. Digital flap displays show the nearly 30 types of beers on tap, most of them sourced from leading local breweries. This being the Buda side means there are more local patrons than tourists; burgers are available to help prevent a hangover.

I love craft beers, but bars that serve them are often too polished, too pristine, without the patina that accrues from long years in the business. The notable exception: Ganz Söröző. This tiny place, which hides on a peaceful, car-free street behind the Ottoman-era dome of Király Baths in Buda, isn't very fashionable but has a lot of charm.