An ironic name?: Cuda Wianki by Browar Błonie

So here I am once more with a beer from Polish brewery Browar Błonie's Polish folklore series. This one was purchased in Chicago last month - Andy's Deli on Milwaukee Avenue, if I recall correctly.

A wianki is a Polish floral wreath. From my experience, they're worn on your head though I suppose you could hang one on your wall or wear it on another part of your anatomy. This beer's name, Cuda Wianki, translates to something like Miracles of the Wreaths or Miracles and Wreaths. I am not sure what this is supposed to mean so let me look it up...

I see that there's a restaurant in Poland with this name...Oh! Wiktionary says that it is a colloquial expression meaning "something unusual, unique, and overly fancy". Interesting.

The label indicated it was an unfiltered pale lager and I suppose the unfiltered part is uncommon, if not exactly unique or overly fancy. Perhaps the name is meant to be ironic. Speaking of the label, it is gorgeous, abounding with cerulean flowers. The English translations on the bottle don't give away much in the way of details about the ingredients. There's water, barley malt, hops, and yeast. What kind of malt? What kind of hops? Only The Cień knows.

My pour produced a small, white head that consisted of big bubbles like soda pop. It went away quickly and successfully eluded my camera as you can see. The piwo was a hazy gold hue but I was able to see some bubbles inside. It smelled wonderful with a goodly amount of bread along with moderate honeyed sweetness and a touch of hay from the hops. What I'd expect from a Euro pale lager. Maybe something more floral if Polish hops had been used but that didn't seem to be the case.

The first sip revealed a medium-light body without much fizziness. There was a little bit of bread that wasn't accompanied by much in the way of sweetness. The hops took on a herbal aspect on my tongue. Despite the mellow hops flavor and seeming lack of fizz, there was a firm astringency. On the swallow a mild grainy taste was quickly supplanted by the hops which took on a spicy flavor to complement the herbal taste. Not a bitterness bomb, by any means, but the finish had just enough of it to make for a crisp and fairly dry denouement.

Cuda Wianki was OK. I think it needed a more pronounced malt flavor though I did really enjoy the brisk hoppiness. It was a fine brew to refresh me after work and, at 5% A.B.V., it stimulated my appetite.

Junk food paring: Also purchased at Andy's was a bag of Polish snacks that paired perfectly with Cuda Wianki. They were like Gardetto's rye chips but loaded with artificial kielbasa flavor and shaped like biscotti. Ciesz się posiłkiem!

The Highlanders sowed their seeds where exactly?: Zasiali Górale by Browar Błonie

My introduction to Polish craft brewery Browar Błonie's folklore brews was highly successful. And so when I was at a Polish grocery store in Chicago back in May and saw more of the series I snagged a few of them. At the check out, the Polish lady at the register said in her accented English that these were some very good piwos. That pretty lady has good taste.

This wheat beer's name, Zasiali Górale, apparently translates to "Sowed by Highlanders". Now, when I think of the Polish Highlands, I think of the Carpathian Mountains and gentlemen with big, bushy mustaches, not amber fields of wheat. Perhaps it's a pun or an allusion that is lost on Google Translate and me alike.

The English label only said "Wheat Ale" and I wasn't sure if it was just an ale made from wheat or if it was a Polish take on the hefeweizen with all the funkadelic flavors from the yeast. Going to the brewery's website and finding the description "A light unfiltered top-fermented beer with hints of bananas and cloves" answered that question.

As luck would have it, I had a Weißbier glass to show off this piwo. And as with another recent brew review, the photo here tricksies you. Insted of a gold color, Zasiali Górale is actually of a light yellow hue and hazy. The Weißbier glass proved a nice bit of luck because this beer had lots and lots and lots of bubbles in it and the tall glass meant I could watch them stream upwards like schools of salmon swimming upstream to their spawning destiny. The head was a big dollop of loose, white foam. This was a gorgeous beer.

The aroma smelled of wheat along with a generous dose of bubble gum and a fainter bit of banana. No clove to my nose. There was also a bit of spicy hops to be had as well. All familiar hefeweizen territory.

My first sip revealed a light-medium body with a nice fizziness to it, although I had expected more considering all those bubbles. Like the nose, I tasted wheat and found that bubble gum was the primary flavor from the yeast with a hint of banana lurking underneath. Clove came into my mind but I didn't taste any and my brain didn't just throw some in there simply because the label said so. There was just enough spicy tasting hops for balance but they were not a prominent flavor.

The wheat and bubble gum flavors lingered on the finish until they faded out due, no doubt, to a combination of being washed from my tastebuds and the spicy hops which were not potent, but not impotent either. Just enough for a spicy-green taste to prevail and add a modicum of bitterness.

Zasiali Górale is a fine traditional hefeweizen though I am still flummoxed by the name. The part of Poland that abuts Gremany is near Berlin while the Highlands are separated from Bavaria by whatever Czechoslovakia is these days. I greatly appreciate the bubble gum-banana flavors from the yeast instead of something more clovey.

Junk food pairing: This fine piwo deserves to be paired with fine foods. Grab a bag of rye pretzel crisps and apply a big helping of bacon horseradish dip. You won't regret it.

Can't stop the singing chicken: Kur Zapiał by Browar Błonie

My luck with Polish beers has not been good lately if the piwo isn't a pale lager from Okocim or Żywiec or another of the bigger Polish breweries. Binny's seems to keep beers from Poland on their shelves long past their lifespans until they are these musty, skunky pale imitations of their former selves. And so when I came across this brew I was a bit gun shy.

I didn't find it at Binny's, however, but rather at Deli 4 You in Schaumburg back in December when I was returning to Madison from having spent some time in Chicago at the Christkindlmarkt. And the date on the label read 30.06.2026. Well within freshness tolerance. The Polish craft beer selection there was small but how many Polish craft beers actually get exported to the U.S.? I think they stocked the full complement of Browar Błonie's Polish Folklore series. Why did I buy this one? That is lost to the ages. It could simply have been that I was in the mood for a pilsner that day. (There was, if I recall correctly, a label in English on the back.)

The description at the brewery's website as translated by Google reads, "Light, unfiltered, dry-hopped beer. Refreshing taste and floral-herbal aroma." Oh, the name translated to "The Hen Sang".

For tasting, I busted out my new pilsner glass which I got at Goodwill when shopping for things for my new apartment. A couple years back I gave away most of my beer glasses but wanted a couple two tree for my new life.

The piwo was yellow and had a slight haze - it's unfiltered, remember? There were lots and lots of bubbles which is something I associated with the pils. My pour produced a small head of lovely white foam which lasted an average amount of time. It appeared to be a very pretty pils, to my eyes. The aroma was just as nice with the Polish hops - variety unknown - giving off straw and floral smells. A nice, cracker-like maltiness was to be had as well.

All of those bubbles portended the piwo's big fizz. A delicate biscuity malt flavor was joined by hops that gave a lovely floral taste along with a mild dose of herbal and some straw notes. The maltiness lingered a couple seconds on the finish before the hops rushed in with their floral/straw combo and some attendant bitterness. My tongue tasted smoothness which I figured came from the malt even though there wasn't much grain flavor to be had - some kind of malty-carbo-palimpsest? Just enough bitterness for a slight zip at the end to go with the moderate dryness.

Oh mama, this was a great piwo! It had the delicate pilsner malt flavor down perfectly and I simply adored the floral aroma and taste that the hops gave. The piwo was light and delicate and had just the right floral everything. Just fantastic stuff.

Junk food pairing: The lovely, tasty, delicate floral taste here deserves not to be overshadowed so stick with something on the mellower side such as Simply White Cheddar Cheetos Puffs.