Previously: 40 Years in Beer (Book II) Part 53: The birth of Samichlaus at Zürich’s classic Brauerei Hürlimann (1994).
Our flight from Zürich to Tirana got into the air, and I found myself strangely nervous, as if I’d finally be meeting a long-distance pen pal in person. What if we didn’t like each other’s looks?
The notion of Albania as an object of fascination began during a European history course in university, when it dawned on me that as modern nations go, it had appeared on the map very late in the game (1912).
In due course, having aligned myself with a band of malcontents, we launched an independent collegiate fraternity, declaring ourselves to be Albanian as opposed to Greek in recognition of the historic enmity between these two Balkan peoples.
My first glimpse of real-world Albania came in 1985. I was lounging on the deck of the ship traveling from Greece to Italy, eating gloriously oily tuna straight from the tin with a camp fork and washing it down with a can of Dutch Oranjeboom beer, when the hazy shoreline of Albania became visible to the east.
After confirming our whereabouts on a nearby map – the Greek island of Corfu could be seen to the west – I gripped the railing while investigating the shadowy headlands in the distance.*
It didn’t look like very much was there, only barren mountains sloping down to the sea and an occasional village. Not one of the thousands of bizarre concrete pillboxes erected by the dictator Enver Hoxha, supposedly as defense emplacements, was visible from the ship.
I already knew that Albania was inaccessible to Americans; nonetheless, an existential question suddenly arose, one that was completely unanswerable at the time.
Was there beer in Albania?
Two years later my journey through Yugoslavia took me to Lake Ohrid, an ancient freshwater body of water on the border of the province of Macedonia (now independent North Macedonia) and Albania.
Albania was on the other side of water, and I daydreamed of taking the public bus to the last stop on the border, where maybe at least the grim soldiers and their fence could be seen, albeit from afar. Would they shoot the camera out of my trembling hands? Would it be an international incident? Wound Ronnie Ray-Gun stirringly eulogize me for an international audience?
Would I die not knowing whether there was beer in Albania?
Finally in 1994 I was able to answer this question affirmatively.
Boston’s Kutrubes Travel tailored a program for our visit to newly non-communist Albania, focusing on food and drink, and allowing us to observe the progress and the problems in this living laboratory of social, economic and political change, and learning about the long and fascinating history of the Albanians.
At last I was able to confirm that yes, beer was being brewed and consumed in Albania. I’d never witnessed anything like Albania, before or since.
Albania in 1994 was nine hot, gritty days spent in a pockmarked Fiat crisscrossing the central and southern Albanian landscape in the company of two successive guides (Genci and Agim) and a deft, talented driver (Nico) whose skill at dodging pedestrians, cyclists, horse-drawn carts, herds of sheep and sagging shoulders put us at “ease” to focus on splendid mountains, peeling buildings, demolished Communist monuments, ubiquitous concrete pillboxes – and most importantly – the hardy, resilient, long-suffering Albanian people.
It was climbing the twisted, shadowed, cobblestoned alleyways of the old city of Berat, a short and steep walk away from the rotting 1960s-era public buildings and a restored mosque across the main square from the huge pile of gravel and broken concrete marking the spot where the statue of Hoxha once stood, and where the people with pick-axes and wheelbarrows could be seen physically dismantling the legacy of Communist rule within minutes (and centuries) of our vantage point amid the Ottoman dwellings that survived earlier tyrannies.
It was driving three hours on the “highway” from the coastal city of Vlorë, where broad, shabby, but shaded avenues led to the port, a short boat ride from where the Soviets kept their submarines during the 1950s, and then ascending the forested mountains, pausing just before the crest to dine on fresh lamb, black olives and tangy feta cheese, washed down with cold Italian lager, before going over the ridgeline for the 5 and 1/2 hour descent through a vertical cactus-and-sagebrush landscape, giving way to sheer ocean cliffs that somehow had been made to cradle a tortuous, switch-backed, crumbled asphalt ribbon without guardrails that demanded patience and concentration of all drivers, and the necessity of honking at every blind curve to clear the path ahead as the blue ocean incessantly meets the rocks so far below.
It was being willingly and joyfully hustled by entrepreneurial urchins atop the craggy peak in Kruje that boasts the restored castle of Skanderbeg, national hero, slayer of Turks and role model for generations of Albanians, permitting the aspiring young businessmen to hawk postcards and needlework in fractured English (but with considerable enthusiasm and a certain innocence, since Albania wasn’t yet overrun with tourists) and being careful to sweep away the dried goat droppings before sitting on the boulders to haggle over wares in a midday sun rendered far more intense by the sleep-inducing fried fish enjoyed at the privately-owned roadside cafe on the way up the hill.
It was walking along the wharf at Durrës and gazing up at the Chinese-lettered cranes, watching a handful of shirtless workers lazily chip away at the rust and cracked paint on the hull of a boat that may have witnessed the mass exodus of Albanians to Italy during the problematic winter when Communism collapsed, now reduced to serenely observing the re-enactment of those events by an Italian documentary film crew housed in the same “seaside socialist” grand hotel with lime green walls and red marble floors where were staying, the film crew bitterly complaining about the quality of the $2.50-a-bottle Albanian Merlot and the greasy “beefsteak” before drinking and eating every bit of it, anyway, and retreating to the bar to watch the World Cup live from America.
It was enough to make a tourist awfully thirsty.
The Korçë Brewing Experience.
The history of commercial brewing in Albania is confined to the decades since 1900. There is no evidence to indicate that beer was a factor during five centuries of Turkish domination, although wine and raki (indigenous firewater) make appearances throughout pre-20th century Albanian history and lore.
For the record, raki is the chill-relieving, euphoria-promoting and paint-thinning social beverage of choice in Albania, and the Albanian wines we tasted were honest, if not spectacular.
The first commercial brewery in Albania in the 20th century was built in 1928 by an Italian company in the southeastern city of Korçë (KOR-che). The city is located in a fertile agricultural valley nestled in rugged mountains and is renowned for commerce (ancient trading routes with Greece and Macedonia), erudition (the first Albanian language school was founded in Korçë), ethnic culture, and as a hotbed of Albania’s 20th-century quest for national identity.
We found the decaying brewery on a tree-lined avenue at the outskirts of the compact city. Bulky iron gates bore the “Birra Korçë” name in simple, red block letters. On the side of a building several yards away, a curiously pristine Communist-era historical marker noted the heroic action of anti-fascist partisans in 1945, who helped to liberate the area by burning some of the brewery’s storage buildings.
As Agim translated the words, I asked myself: How could this really be a victory if the beer wasn’t liberated prior to the destruction of its home? Certainly the ideological struggle against capitalism might be suspended for a few rounds prior to the lighting of the arsonist’s torch?
The Korçë brewery reeked of faded, degraded elegance. It was constructed in the traditional tower layout, with the barley conveyed to the top for milling, the mash tun and brew kettle taking up the middle, and the fermenters and lagering tanks at the bottom. The mustard-colored, green-trimmed buildings seemed in decent shape in spite of recent neglect, but conditions were chaotic on the day of our visit.
A horse and several dogs roamed the compound, and mounds of rusted machinery, a staple feature of the contemporary Albanian landscape, littered the yard. Inside, some windows were patched with cardboard and there were more than a few puddles formed by leaking pipes.
Yet, in spite of it all, the brewery at Korçë (the only one in Albania with a tradition of excellence, according to Agim) was slowly shuddering back to life following a period of dormancy since the collapse of Albania’s economy. The brewery was being revived by a consortium of eleven investors who had been victims of political persecution during the Communist era and who, as a form of settlement, were given a competitive advantage during the bidding procedure to privatize industry.
On the day of our visit, the Korçë brewery’s first test batch of the new era was boiling in the kettle. The new owners had to overcome formidable obstacles just to arrive at the point of brewing. The brewery was somewhere in the middle of the renovation process as we toured the building, and it had the littered appearance of a construction site. We were told that until the European Union chipped in several thousand cases of used, East German half-liter beer bottles, there was nothing in which to actually package the beer, although a few dozen antique wooden kegs were left behind.
We briefly met with three of the new owners before departing. One of them worked in the brewery before and was now the brewmaster; he told us that they hoped to resurrect Birra Korçë’s three styles: 12-degree pilsner, 12-degree dark lager and a special 14-degree lager. The pilsner would come first.
Interestingly, the Albanian adjective used to describe a “dark” was black, and my curiosity was aroused. To the north, Albania borders on Montenegro (“Black Mountain”), a former Balkan kingdom and Yugoslav republic that became independent in 2006, and more importantly, was the birthplace of fictional detective Nero Wolfe.
Marketing possibilities flowed liberally through my mind as we sat in the old, musty, high-ceilinged office and listened to the brewmaster explain his choice of German hops, Italian malt and yeast obtained at the same brewery in Athens where Amstel is brewed under license.
I left with the impression that the consortium would be able to pull it off and put Birra Korçë back on the brewing map, and in fact they held onto the brewery until 2004, when a nouveau riche Albanian magnate purchased it.
To judge from current photos, the ensuing modernization has been complete and all-encompassing, inside and out, and the brewery looks like Disneyland. If the fellows we met that day so along ago sold out and got paid, I’m happy for them. After all, it isn’t easy.
Back in the Brewing Business in Tirana.
In contrast to the brewery at Korçë, the plant dating from 1960 in Albania’s capital city of Tirana was utilitarian, a white-tiled facility resembling a dairy more than a brewery. It was built with Soviet assistance, and looked it.
Our ride from the port city of Durrës to the brewery in Tirana took us past rustic villages, abandoned and dilapidated concrete irrigation channels, wandering herds of livestock, Albania’s sparkling new Coca-Cola bottling plant, row after row of shabby socialist tenements, and finally a vast lot where the burned-out remains of the city’s Communist-era bus fleet reposed in blackened, skeletal queues.
At the time of our visit, the Birra Tirana brewery hadn’t yet been privatized (and wasn’t until 2001), but at least it had resumed production. Upon arriving at the gate, we encountered a reluctance to let us enter; this was typical. Eventually a wiry, chain-smoking worker with an impressive five o’clock shadow and darting, nervous eyes took an interest in us and went off in search of the plant director, who couldn’t be found. By that time we were inside, Genci having persuaded someone to make a decision and let the foreigners escape the blazing midday sun.
Minutes later, we met the “lost” director in the hall, and he hastily grunted retroactive permission to enter, no doubt thanking his lucky stars that he no longer lived in a nation where negligence determined by coin flip might be greeted with a trip to the eastern Albanian ore mines or the dungeon-like prisons of the citadel in Gjirokastra, with its handy rooftop garden once used by firing squads, but now serving as a convenient point from which to survey the ancient hilltop town and surrounding mountains.
We were met by a friendly, diminutive brewmaster who happily led us around the sparse, functional plant and answered questions through our interpreter. Like the older brewery in Korçë, Tirana’s brewery had ceased to function for quite some time. According to the employees, it closed because the former brewery bureaucrat had been paid off by entrepreneurs who were engaged in importing Macedonian Skopsko Pivo and were intent on eliminating the local competition.
Only one beer, a Czech-style pilsner, was being brewed at the time of our visit. Hops were being purchased from Germany, and barley and yeast from Italy. The yeast was being cultured in a bare-bones laboratory, where a batch foamed merrily in a kitchen-sink-sized steel receptacle.
After 5 to 7 days of primary fermentation, the beer was pumped into the secondary tanks in the basement for 21 days of lagering at near-freezing temperatures. As we enjoyed the comfortable contrast in temperature afforded by the frigid lagering cellar, the brewmaster’s assistant tapped off some two-week old, unfiltered “Hoxha’s Best” and proudly offered glasses to us. The beer was crisp and nicely defined, far tastier than most of the Italian imports on sale in Albania.
Later we sampled the filtered, bottled, final 11-degree product and noticed the lack of labels; they hadn’t gotten to those yet, but hoped to soon (as identification, the brewery logo was displayed on the bottle caps). Appropriately, the beer was priced to sell below the lowest-priced imports, a sound strategy in a country as poor as Albania. On both sampling occasions, first in the cellar and then at the bottling line, we were joined in our tasting by that wiry, nervous employee from the guard shack, who had accompanied us on the entire route through the brewery.
As we surveyed the women from the bottling line, who were taking a break as the line underwent repairs, I spotted our chain-smoking friend discretely posted behind a machine, taking a final, furious drag on his cigarette as he removed the cap from an unguarded bottle and drained most of it in one swallow. In my view, it was a well-deserved reward for being responsive to the visitors, and I thanked him.
Plenty of Beer to Wash Down Your Qofte.
(Qofte = pan-fried meatballs.)
In 1994, with only one brewery operational, and another fighting to revive, the thirst for beer in Albania had to be met from elsewhere.
Albania’s economy was entirely open, anarchy reigned, and the entrepreneurial spirit was taking root with a vengeance. Numerous small restaurants and bars were in operation, and street stalls and kiosks, some no more than a disparate collection of tables set up around the perimeters of dusty squares and thoroughfares, vended all necessary consumer goods.
Much of the import-export trade centered on cash-and-carry middlemen who purchased used trucks from Germany and Italy, and made buying trips abroad, purchasing whatever they found on offer that might be resold in Albania. In short, we experienced Albania immersed in the transitional economic phase known as Big Lots Capitalism.
Although this wide-open business climate was bringing plenty of foreign beer into Albania, it still wasn’t a “beer country” by any stretch. Tolerable brands were available, most commonly Amstel and Kronenbourg (both brewed under license in neighboring Greece), along with a number of Italian brands, attesting to Italy’s status as a prime investor in the recovering economy.
Some of the Italian brands weren’t bad: Dreher, Splügen Oro and Moretti, each of them a spritzy and mild golden lager, capable of taking the edge off the Albanian heat when served cool (on one occasion, as chilled from a mountain stream). All these imports were available at reasonable prices ranging from 50 cents to a dollar, depending on the venue.
I can only speculate as to the availability and popularity of beer during Communist times. Our guides said that beer from Tirana and Korçë was generally available in the old days, and reminded us that wine and raki were (and remained) the traditional alcoholic beverages of choice. Non-alcoholic beverages like coffee and tea, legacies of the Turkish presence, seemed to be everywhere.
However, surprises lurked in the chaotic, nebulous Albanian beer market. We found a small, modern street side bar in Tirana that boasted Hacker-Pschorr (Helles) on draft and Pschorrbrau Hefe-Weisse in cooled bottles. Genci and Agim weren’t as taken with the Bavarian wheat beers as Amy and I were. The future of this particular establishment was hazy, as it had changed hands once or twice since being opened, and currently was owned by an Italian tour company.
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.
Pending the completion of an Austrian-built hotel complex adjacent to the former Hoxha mausoleum, one of the most modern, well-appointed taverns in Tirana was called the Piano Bar, owned by two brothers who amassed investment capital while working in Germany, and developed a taste for German beers in the process.
The bar served a light menu of sandwiches, and was being expanded to include a stage for live presentations and an underground Keller where stone walls and wooden beams were being cleaned and readied on the day of our visit. Of all the privately owned bars we visited, the Piano Bar was the best and probably beer-friendliest.
The Piano Bar sold a Greek-brewed, Henninger-licensed (Germany) export contrivance known as Golden Lager, which turned out to be solid. The owners were eager to begin selling Pilsner Urquell on draft as soon as they could purchase the necessary tapping equipment and find a way to ensure an uninterrupted supply. Also available were a half-dozen bottled beers, including (drum roll, please) Rolling Rock.
Why?
Rolling Rock and Italy’s Moretti were subsidiaries of Labatt’s, and Moretti could be found throughout Albania, and so it came to pass that Latrobe, Pennsylvania met Tirana, Albania on the last day of our visit.
We bought a round of Rolling Rocks at the Piano Bar for Agim, Genci and Nico, the latter pronouncing it wonderful as the others looked on with a great deal of skepticism. It was too watery for them, as for me, and yet it was fun to watch their reactions as we drank the only American beer to be found in Albania, at least until Anheuser-Busch or Miller rewards the Korçë consortium with vast profits for their reconstruction efforts and begins churning out Old Albanian Light in aluminum cans.
It took nine years from my first view of the Albanian coastline, but in the end I was able to locate and taste Albanian beer. Now I need a new obsession. Are there hamburgers in North Korea?
—
* The boat docked briefly at Corfu, and when progress continued toward Italy, so did the on-board festivities. I shared the ferry’s peanut gallery of a deck with Australian and German backpackers, and with precious little to offer them in a cultural context, instead I taught them how to play the familiar Hoosier drinking game now called Drachma Bounce, using a metal camp cup and alternating portions of Retsina and Ouzo either as penalty for winning, or reward for losing.
** As of 2024, there is a beer scene in Albania, and these two Norwegians would like to guide you through it.
