Visited 20 breweries over 16 days on the Bangalore Craft crawl, 2024. Going in chronological order of last to first, and my favourites and the hamper given for finishing the crawl are at the end of the thread.
Here's my story
(longish thread) two parts, Part 1
Most trendy places in Bangalore are
*Expensive*
*Overhyped*
*Generic zero personality ambience*
*Terrible service*
Went to this place last night called Roxie. Couldn't roll my eyes more if I tried while writing this one
-UX of their menu app sucks so bad
-Waiters are clueless af
Travel nightmares
I have put off writing this for so long. But I recently went on an "organised" group trip. My first and hopefully last one.
Here's the tea on everything that went wrong, and hopefully this helps folks vet instagram travelfuencer 'companies' before selecting
I am 28 year old who :
Drinks and smokes occasionally
Lives with her cute mum in Bangalore
Has invented new definitions of partying
Drives her car in a commute she hates
Some people will say I need to get my shit together
For me, I'm doing my best, just like everyone else 🫠
I am a 24 year old who :
- Doesn’t drink or smoke
- Bought her 1st house worth 1.5 Cr
- Doesn't party
- Hasn't moved out of her parent's house (the new cool)
- Gifted herself a car
some people will say i don’t enjoy my life!
for me, enjoyment is achieving something which I
I'm so tired of these random tasteless spineless restaurants popping up all over Bangalore that have gigantic menus and boring decor that caters to everybody and nobody and they have crazy reservations but they can't get the basics right. Safe to say I won't be coming back.
Finally got a table at Pizza 4P's. Was it worth it? It depends.
Ambience 10/10
Service 9/10
Pizza 9/10
Soup 11/10
Tiramisu, cheese board, pasta (good but not memorable)
Hype being worth it (6/10)
Finished the Bangalore craft crawl!
Ah X. Failed to send my long thread on the brewery trail. Kill me me now. Took me 45 mins to write all of it. Luckily have saved the text somewhere. Will put it together when I'm less mad at this app. But for now a celebratory picture
-Wasn't even served water until asked
- No kids menu and waiters don't seem to get custom requests for the baby we had in the group
- Only one high chair in that entire place
- The soup was served at room temp
- They forgot to place one of our orders
anyone who thinks blr is a nice city is just plain delulu. people from other metros - pls find some other place as you are being sold a 'narrative' that the 'culture' of the city is better than it is. Infra anyway you know the story.
- Ridiculous prices for some menu items (almost 400 bucks for Palak patta chat, bruh what?)
- Food was average, nothing to write home about
- Food on their menu vs what they actually served (pasta especially)
No. 1, Bier Library, Kora (last first)
Love this place, so open. Had a fresh crisp West Coast IPA, a taste I still remember. Had a large single pizza slice too. Will go back because it's a nice post work place and need to try more brews and food that get rave reviews.
No. 20, Primegolf brewing, whitefield
IPA was good, not too bitter. Only had 500ml and not smaller
Food was okay
Vibes- nice, has Foosball, pool and other games and a small mini golf course
Staff were super nice and excited that I was the first person to finish the crawl there!
Hold up in court (void in India to sign away your right to sue) Then ofcourse they made us sign it at a place where we had already started the trip, so we had no option not to. Already off to a terrific start.
No. 19, Geist, OMR.
Great IPA (Geist, duh) got a great pizza (mushroom and caramisled onion) place looks okay, laidback, service was great. Perks is that they have free menstrual products in the washroom, place is great for pets and mothers as well & beer takeaway is available
What did I get as a hamper when I finished the crawl?
Loved this so much: Coasters from every single brewery on the crawl.
A tote bag, a beer mug, socks, pins and stickers.
- first I had to sign a legal disclaimer that wasn't even legally admissible. I laughed out out loud when I read it - it was basically asking me to sign away my legal right to sue (even in case of organiser negligence) and double checked the provisions to make sure it wouldn't
Would I do it again?
Yes this was a lot of fun! Looking forward to next year's. Would love to do a gin crawl as I'm also a G&T girl.
Would highly recommend you do the crawl if this excites you, its on till the 31st. Drink responsibly. Bye. XD
No. 18, Gold rush, KR puram
Cowboy themed place, big and fun, biggest draw was the tables with swings as seating. Nothing beats drinking beer on a swing. IPA was decent, fries were weird. Will go back for the cowboy theme and the swings.
No. 17, Peepai, Hebbal.
I've always loved Peepai, crisp IPA, physical menus!! (only 2 out of 20 had them), great food and service, I keep going back. Their stamp is snazzy too.
No. 16, Candles, Hebbal
Best view out of the 20, Greek neo-classical style decor, decent IPA, didn't try food much. Will go back for the view and the sculptures. Nice place for couples.
No. 5, Big Brewski, Hennur
I love this place, Viking themed details, great music, vibe. Loved the IPA and the food. A little far but I'll keep going back because it is the OG Big Bangalore Brewery.
No. 3, Toit, Indiranagar
What can I write, the first brewery I've ever been to, food is great, IPA was decent, but obviously I've had better on this Crawl. Toit is good atmosphere and nostalgia now. Went with
@itspsneha
No. 15, Longboat, Marathahalli
Huge place, water feature in the middle. Plane goes to HAL overhead every few minutes. Menu had local Karnataka snacks on it. (Golibhaje ftw). Food was good. IPA fine, 250ml size available. Terrific service. Cute stamp too.
- next thing I want to touch on is offbeat places, which they'd advertised would be part of the itinerary - at this point it's more a siren call than an actual abilitu, so I would say be vary of this claim that they'll know or bother to include 'offbeat places' which goes to my
No. 2, Pump House, JP nagar
JP Nagar OG, beautiful place, always packed. Great vibes, decent IPA and food. Will go back because it's the closest to home hahaha. And it's pretty.
Sometimes I think about what I'm going to say to Nikhil Kamath if I ever run into him at Cubbon Park or somewhere in Central Bangalore:
Why a podcast man??
What's your skincare routine?
So do you think Koshy's is overrated or what?
Next point - the organisers themselves. This is a little harder to vet but know who they are first? And whether they truly know the region they're taking you to or whether they have just taken a lot of Zoom calls there during the pandemic. An indepth conversation with them and
Independent research about the trip helps. Now as a disclaimer I usually travel solo or with my partner who was abroad at the time and this region is particularly difficult to access for solo travelers so I opted for a group. And to avoid the headache of planning which I didn't
People keep asking me to name them and its a fair question - why review something and not be 100% transparent about it.
The trip I went on was to Spiti with Modern Nomads. Tbh their other trips had smaller groups (<10) and were great, I've heard from
Who wanted to offroad and people who didn't. Now I was all up for being psyched about offroading but im from bangalore and potholes are my life but there wasn't really anything to counter balance this offroading madness.
Nothing they knew on the culture, history, the people..
Damn Kora triggers people so much. I'm a Kannadiga and I think it's cumbersome to type out Koramangala all the time. For Banashankari we put as BSK, for Basavangudi we say Bgudi so I don't see the problem with Kora? It's cute, get with it.
Organised vacation. I decided to put this out because giving feedback to the organisers during the trip didn't really help and after the trip I've had time to reflect on what is responsible consumer behavior, and what I would do differently if I could go back in time.
Who run such things because it's cool on insta or whatever need to have a lot more experience before they claim they are 'True experts in the field'.
And we as consumers should do our research and not fall prey for pretty pictures or catchy captions to ensure a fun, engaging,
Just felt like we were tagging along on with a bunch of adrenaline junkies. They truly should have divided the two groups into separate trips from the start.
- another point on groupificarion - people do go on these group trips to mingle but there was an ingroup and outgroup..
Living in Bangalore makes you an anxious, irritated and angry person and it won't even be 9am. Commute be like:
Uncle in SUV who doesn't speed or give way (Definitely on his way back home from morning jog-dosa) x3
Idiot two wheeler guy who turns without indicator
Bike guy who
No. 12, 46 ounces brewgarden, Electronic city
Farthest one without other breweries around, huge place, decent food and IPA. Took mum on this and the Sarjapur circuit.
Best stamp hands down.
On the tail end of our trip, one of our Innovas broke down. Promises were made that it would be fixed but in the end everyone generously compromised to adjust and cram into the rest of the cars on what is possible the most difficult road in the world.
- I also heard other
The ingroup being the travelfluencer and their friends who randomly joined the trip the day before we left increasing the group size to 25!!! (Insist on small groups only) and everyone else in the outgroup. The ingroup would do special activities without bothering to include the
No. 6, Druid Garden, Sahakaranagara
Brutalist vibes in the architecture, love the smoking area. Don't recall IPA or food standing out. Would go back for the smoking area lol
Manage to avoid thanks to my poor decision making and the little info I looked up before signing up. I was trying to be spontaneous so FML.
(End of disclaimer)
- so not only did they not know the region, they were only interested in offroading. So the trip divided into people
Complains that the guys were put in triple sharing rooms without even the communication that they could have paid just 7k extra.
- and ofcourse me being me I complained when these issues occurred but I was either ignored or asked to 'just chill'
- safe to say I think the people
No. 14, Aurum breworks, Sarjapur
Lowkey looking place, heard rooftop has a dance floor but didn't visit it. Saw a really cute guy there, who seemed to know everyone from the waiters to the customers. Did not figure out who he is. Go try your luck ladies. Don't remember the IPA.
Outgroup. Now I navigated between the two but others who would have come on these trips to make friends would have felt isolated. Plus I do think the organisers conflated wanderlust with organising a 25 person group trip in difficult terrain so they had problems with some basic
Anyone kept track of the number of restaurants and bars that have open and closed in Indiranagar over the years? Here's my list
- Black Rabbit
- Agent Jack
- Middle eastern place near Toit
- Dofu
- Smally's
- Vegan place on 12th main
- Monkey Bar
Do you know more
No. 11, Arbor, Magrath road
Lively packed place, good beer, great food. A little generic for me but a casual enough hangout spot. Had great potato skins with artichoke dip. They had 250ml beer sizes so you can try more flavours.
How did I get around? How did I bunch them up? (Transport mode in emojis)
My office is in Kora so I did Bier library and Biergarten post work, besides that everything else was over a weekend. 🚗
Pump house is in Bangalore south, did that one Friday. 🚗
No. 9, Boche & Shakesbierre, Brigade road
Middle ages themed place, rooftop area has great views. Bitter IPA but great service. Would go back for Brigade views. When I was there I saw the most animated corporate dinner group ever, so bonded. Wanted to know where they worked lol
No. 4, Windmills, EPIP zone, whitefield
Didn't get to sit in the music area, but sat on the terrace which was low key. Random menu and food, would probably only go back for a live music gig.
No. 8, Seven rivers, MG road
Used to be Ice nightclub in the Taj, felt a little downtempo but nice seating around the pool. IPA didn't stand out. Bring back ICE! But I love their other bottled beers.
No. 7, Biergarten, Kora
Giant place (for Kora). Decent beer, food was meh, vibes were nothing memorable. It's in a hectic area but pretty peaceful inside. They had a cute menu just for the beer.
No. 13, Deck of brews, Sarjapur
Generic decor problems. IPA was bitter, place was a bit boring, but service was nice. It seemed popular for the area though, was packed with young people. Forgot to take pictures, was too tired. Only 500ml but waiter split it into two glasses.
How did I drink so much beer? 🍺
If it was a 4 brewery circuit, I'd do one beer at the first one, a beer and a starter at the second one, only beer at the 3rd one, beer and mains at the 4th one. Smaller serving sizes helped.
people who travelled with them and who had good travel experiences. Ours just blew out of proportion, it was very difficult terrain and I understand the challenges they had. But still. Some of the fuckups were basic af.
@onceuponabhi
Yeah but Toit has a 45 minute waiting time on weekday nights and hours more on weekends and on somedays you just want to get eat and get home. I prefer places where I can either make a reservation or walk in.
Bunched up Toit and Windmills using purple line metro. 🚇
Big Brewski, Druid Garden bundled. 🛺🚕 Planned to hit other two in Hebbal on the same day but got too full.
Did Central BLR circuit in one go - 7 rivers, boche, Mannheim and Arbor - the most fun crawl. 🚶♀️🛺🚕
@avgspacelover
@mrinininininini
Phil let Claire be the bad guy, the discipline enforcer while he got to be the fun one. He used something called weaponised incompetence to make Claire pick up most of the slack in raising the family. He's a nice guy but he's happy to let her bear the heavyweight tasks.
Then did Electronic city road trip for 46 ounces, followed by Sarjapur circuit (Aurum, Deck of brews, Longboat) 🚗
Worst leg, so much traffic,
Did Candles and Peepai, across the street from each other in Hebbal 🛺🚕
Last circuit Whitefield, Did Gold rush, Geist and Primegolf. 🚇
For people who missed these:
Who did I go on the crawl with?
Solo for 8 out of 20, with friends and mum for the rest.
How much did I spend?
Average spends if I went solo was from 300 to 700, around 1500 if I went with someone else. Can calculate the specifics, if you all want
Started the Banglore craft (beer) crawl by
@Windmillscraft
First stop at Bier Library, Koramangala after work
Tried the west coast IPA with a slice of pizza, loved it. Tried the Belgin Triple, which is smooth AF.
Here's some pics and my crawl passport!
Just let your ancestral house be. Don't turn it into a commercialized croissant facility designed to cater to late capitalism induced sugar cravings. Turn it into an art gallery and serve chai or something.
@somanna_bu
So if you have a terrible gait like me and rip through regular chappals in 1 to 3 months, Birks really cut it in terms of comfort, foot support and and being multi-use and they go with most outfits. I bought a pair on sale, haven't paid full price for a pair yet
To all the non cricket folks who have to participate in cricket conversations for the next few weeks: TLDR of Match yesterday
- India won world cup after 17 years
- They won every match this world cup
- Virat and Rohith are retiring from T20
(T20 is different from ODI)
One of my favourite tree shedding seasons in blr has begun - the Badam tree leaves are turning red and falling in droves. No pictures because I only notice them while driving but will get some tomorrow
Whipping out these trekking boots after a long time - road tripping to Spiti via
@Somya_Crazy
! Been dying to go there ever since my solo trip to Himachal in 2021 and now it's finally happening 🙌