London to Istanbul – Epic Rail Journey : Day 8
As with Bucharest we opted to add an additional night in Sofia as it was a first visit to Bulgaria and it was a good choice. Sofia is a wonderful city with architecture ranging from Roman ruins right through to brutalist Soviet buildings.We set off after breakfast hoping to beat some of the heat. We didn’t. But we still managed a fantastic amble around taking in the Roman ruins, preserved in a Metro station, Sofia Mosque and the 4th Century Sofia Church of St George and all of this is in a ten minute walking radius.
It was now approaching noon and we needed refreshments so it was time to start on the list of target bars I had drawn up. The first of these is only a couple of minutes away from the Patriarchal Cathedral St Alexander Nevsky. We arrived at opening time and it was still closed up, giving a few minutes panic wondering if it would open followed by the relief when it did! The biggest surprise came when we entered where the first thing you see is a handpump. A working handpump. Dispensing locally brewed Bitter. On cask! BiraBar is a cosy one roomed affair offering 13 beers across keg and cask.
BiraBar, Sofia Center, ul. “Paris” 8, 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria
From here we took a steady 15 minute walk to Sbeerka, a bottle shop that also offered 7 beers on tap, only 2 of which were Bulgarian, and it turned out that one of those was off! I had the draft Bulgarian beer and also had a bottle from another new, to me, Bulgarian brewery. The draft beer was poured in to a plastic bottle before being handed to us with a couple of glasses, it wasn’t entirely clear why it was done this way, but I guess they have their reasons. Not the most comfortable of bars, clearly more geared to people buying to take away.
Sbeerka, Sofia Center, Krakra St 4, 1504 Sofia, Bulgaria
The next bar was the first of a couple of tap rooms, this one the tap for Sofia Electric, Vitamin B. An old house in a residential street converted in to a bar and easily overlooked. Inside was a comfortable bar offering 8 beers on tap, half from Sofia Electric.
Vitamin B, Sofia Center, ul. “Vrabcha” 24, 1504 Sofia, Bulgaria
A longer walk, with plenty more sightseeing, to the fourth bar of the day, Tap Local, which is the tap room for Kazan Artizan. This is a very small bar, although it does also have a mezzanine seating area, that was particularly busy as they were showing the Charity Shield on a big screen. They offer 8 taps of their own beers, and also do flights of 4x15cl.
Tap Local, Sofia Center, ul. “Georgi Benkovski” 6, 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria
The next beer stop was Cosmic Craft Beer another bottle shop and bar in a narrow shop unit. 4 beers were available on tap although only one was Bulgarian.
Cosmic Craft Beer, Sofia Center, ul. “Graf Ignatiev” 34, 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria
The final new bar of the night was back towards our hotel, Crafter Shop. This is a sister bar to Crafter Bar and is more of a bottle shop that only has two beers on tap which on our visit were one from Austria and one from Scotland. I went with the Bevog, much as I love Vault City!
Crafter Shop, Sofia Center, ul. “Knyaz Boris I” 65, 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria
From here I made sure that Mrs MA was safely back in the hotel before I popped back out to the previous nights two bars where I picked up a couple of draft beers I hadn’t had 24 hours previously, one from Italy and one from the US. And then I, too, returned to the hotel after a very good day in Sofia.