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Festa e Birres

We decided to visit the Beer Fest on Sunday to round off the busy weekend. After taking a walk up on Sunday afternoon to watch them setting up we went back that night with a few friends. A couple of things struck me.

The youngest person I saw there was being carried around on his dad's shoulders; the oldest must have been about 70 or more, and there were lots of family groups out. The family whose table we joined, having heard us speaking English bought us a round of beer. Have I mentioned Albanian hospitality?

The whole thing was managed by a handful of private security guards and 3 cops - very civilised.

Getting ready for the evening session at Beer Fest on a very hot Sunday afternoon



Open for business on Sunday evening


Beer for only 50 Leke including Albania's best beer - Korca Dark

Food

Music



Comments

Anonymous said…
The place looks awesome Thanks for the pics.
Hopefully i'll be there next year to enjoy it
Anonymous said…
Great to see a successful beer festival in Tirana. Albanian hospitality is fantastic, having experienced it on numerous occasions. I regularly travel to Albania. Starting to see Albania being mentioned in the media positively here in the UK now, as a holiday destination.
ITS said…
Seems like you got there a bit early, no?

The real question is just how drunk was the kid on his father's shoulders? Was he drunk enough to pick a fight with the 70 year old gramps?

/I am glad you had fun.
Anonymous said…
I was there on Friday evening. I really enjoyed it. If I weren’t in Dhermi during the weekend, I would have visited it for the other two days. The only thing I didn't like was that I couldn't drink much beer, as the cost of waiting in line was greater than the profit from drinking a glass of chilled brown Birra Korca.
Anyway, I hope there this summer will be other activities like that.


Meg.
Anonymous said…
it is true, they let us drink alcohol since we were kids in Albania. I like it this way. Because i know what alcohol is and i've had it in moderation at every family gathering i've never gotten drunk in my life.

When i was really really young, my grandpa used to give me raki in secret when my mom left the room.=)

hospitality- this is one of the reasons that tourism will never work here, because foreigners will get everything for free.
bletebzz said…
awesome. they never had beer fest in my time. people just got drunk whenever they felt like it.
just kidding. it looks like a lot of fun.
Anonymous said…
omg! is that beer fest right nexi to the cemetary???! That is really stupid and disrespectful!
Anonymous said…
Why is it disrespectful?! In albania we drink to commemorate the dead.

anyway the feast looked vivacious until we discovered the long lines in front of beerpoints.I hope they will keep this in mind for the next year

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