Serbia's Belgrade Beer Festival

The Belgrade Beer Festival is not a beer festival.

That's what every beer geek back in the USA would say.  Out of the 20 or so beers available at the festival, there's nothing that would excite any major beer tourist.  Unfortunately, once you go east of Germany and the Czech Republic all the European beers start tasting the same.  If you want to be the first to say you've drank Jelen, Laskov, Niksicko, and some Irish-Style Serbian Craft Beer, then go for bragging rights.  They're still better than your average Central American beer, but nothing that will make beer geeks have beergasms.

Maps Are Irrelevant When You're This Drunk

You don't go to Belgrade for beer tasting...you go there to party.  The Belgrade Beer Festival is certainly a great place to party.  There's one massive stage that has live bands playing until the early hours of the morning.  Beer, alcohol and Serbian barbeque flow freely.  Beautiful Balkan girls will dance with you and crazy Balkans guys will challenge your foreign ass to out-drink them (good luck.)

Unlike Serbia's far more popular Exit Festival, the Belgrade Beer Festival still feels authentically Serbian. Most of the bands are national or former Yugoslavian rock acts that don't play outside of the Balkans. Meanwhile the Exit Festival attracts Europeans from all over to see international bands and DJs such as Guns N' Roses, Snoop Dogg, Eric Prydz, Artic Monkeys and David Guetta.

During 2 days at the Beer Festival, I didn't run into a single 'foreigner.'  Note the contrast.

Good Balkan Company

The big headliners for the 2011 Belgrade Beer Festivals were Riblja Čorba, Atomsko Sklonište, Kiki Lesendrić i Piloti and Marky Ramone's Blitzkrieg (yes, from The Ramones.)  And if anyone remembers the 1980s, Simple Minds also headlined.  One group which has never headlined, but which has played every festival dating back to the first in 2003 is the Orthodox Celts.  They are actually a national group, but true to their name they play traditional Irish folk music.  They fucking rock.

Are any of these groups ringing a bell??

From a local perspective, Riblja Čorba is probably the most famous of all the groups.  These old guys have managed to stay rocking since 1978 with most of the original band still intact.  I'm told their lyrics are quite funny and often political....if only I understood Serbian.

In addition to solid rock 'n' roll groups, the festival offers more typical traditional Serbian groups for people who are into the Gypsy Balkan sound made popular by Goran Bregovic, Emir Kusterica and the like.  As cool as that music is, some Serbians will tell you that Goran and Imir 'sold out.'  Go to this festival if you want to hear some undiscovered sounds...

My personal recommendation: buy a few liters of Jelen Pivo outside the festival where it's a lot cheaper and get drunk before you go in.  Most of the Serbians will be doing the same and -as with me- they might ask you, "Why the fuck you here, and not Exit Fest?!"  Then they will hand you a beer and say, "Ziveli!" You'll be in good company.  I certainly was.

I ♥ Balkan Girls 

The Do Absolutely Nothing Tour of Nis, Serbia

There's actually plenty to do in Nis, but the best way to enjoy this slow southern Serbian town is by doing absolutely nothing.  Find an outdoor cafe, order a black, Turkish coffee and waste the afternoon away.  After you're done with that grab a cold Jelen beer, sit by the river and waste the night away.  You'll learn a lot...especially if you're with the right people.

This is how I spent my last trip to Nis in 2011 so there's not much to say.  For those ambitious tourists who like to plan ambitious scheduled itineraries (boring), I'll share my big accidental Nis trip from summer 2010.  As follows...

Downtown Nis. What's the antonym for 'bustling'?

Nis seems to specialize in morbid, depressing tourism.  Here's a list of the uplifting, happy locations you can visit when you aren't discussing the uplifting politics of Serbia over coffee:

1. Nazi Concentration Camp which was ironically a Red Cross building
2. Bubanj Memorial where many of the camp prisoners were executed
3. Nis Fortress where Turks and Serbs killed each other
4. Skull Tower which is composed of the skulls of Serbs who were killed by Turks

Sounds like a lot of fun, right?  I only visited the Concentration Camp, Bubanj Memorial and partied at the Fortress. Perhaps the most depressing item is that Nis Fortress has been left in neglect, thereby allowing local Mafia to build - you guessed it - a disco on the fortress.  Serbians accept this as Mafia doing what Mafia does, and in fact the 'historical' disco is a great place to go out in town.

I will describe the places I've visited in more detail in the next few blogs...when I get around to it. People in Nis are never in a hurry, so I will honor them by not hurrying this writing.  When I'm in Nis I simply go with the flow and do what the locals tell me.  They mainly tell me to slow down, relax and drink more.  I'm happy to say that I'm doing that as I write.

So before we take a tour of Nis, here's a big Jelen Pivo toast to all of my wild Serbs:

  "Ziveli!! Aj De Breee!"