Revisiting Istanbul

In December I visited friends in Istanbul with my wife. We’d lived there from 2020-23 for work and it’s always good to visit again – on this trip we stayed in the same apartment block we’d lived in, in Şişli.

I was fortunate enough to live nearby what you might consider Turkey’s home of ‘craft’ beer. Bomontiada was built in the late 1800s as a brewery by Swiss brewers the Bomonti brothers. Bomonti brewery was bought by Turkey’s Anadolu Efes macro-brewer in the 1990s and still exists as a spin-off ‘craft’ label – their Bomonti Filtresis (unfiltered lager, 4.8%) is widely available in both bottles and on taps in many restaurants and pubs in the city, and is my go-to when not in a craft beer bar.

Bomontiada is now home to several bars and restaurants, including Populist, my first stop on this trip – Populist is a chain of currently two brewpubs which, due to peculiarities of Turkish law meaning that a brewery cannot sell its beer direct to the public, serves exclusively beer from Torch Brewery.

Torch and Populist are legally distinct businesses, but all beer served in Populist is Torch. It’s a large space with a huge capacity, and serves what I’d describe as Turkish fusion pub food. Burgers, but also flatbread topped with kokoreç – chopped and spiced lamb intestines.

They brew a range of pale ales and IPAs which usually lean towards a more old school English or west coast IPA rather than the currently popular New England variety. They often have more than one variety of lager on (their 4.9% Kölsch is my go-to on a hot day), usually a nitro stout (5.8%) or occasionally an imperial stout (>8%). For their 1000th brew in 2022 they made a berry vanilla imperial stout at 8.6%. On this visit I had the 5.8% IPA on keg — 330ml for 265TL, or £6. Craft beer in Turkey is fairly expensive due to the various taxes and duties involved, and the cost of ingredients.

On my second day I visited another of Istanbul’s ‘brewery taps’ — SOMX’s Taproomx, in a very central location just off Istiklal. They’re a cuckoo brewery whose beer is brewed in 3 Kafadar’s brewery in Istanbul. I tried a single hop Idaho7 Pale (4.6%), then their Kent Caramel (5%), a brown ale with East Kent Goldings hops! I finished up with their new Nectarlicious NEIPA (6%) — hopped with Nectaron, of course. We then moved on to a local excellent Georgian restaurant, Galaktion.

On the third day (and again on the fourth to meet friends) I ended up in what should be any beer fan’s target when in Istanbul — Sanayi 1-A. They now have two branches and I began in their newer Nişantasi branch, which I hadn’t visited before. I had an Aşne Vişne by 3 Kafadar (5%) which is a sour cherry beer — I believe all its sourness comes from the fruit rather than the brew method.

Later that afternoon I visited the original Sanayi 1-A bar in Maslak, in an area called Atatürk Oto Sanayi. It’s an area full of car garages (oto sanayi means ‘auto industry’) and anyone who’s spent time wandering around industrial estates looking for a taproom will feel at home here. These bars are probably the only independent wholly craft beer bars in the country — many bars in busy areas will have occasional taps of craft beer or bottles in their fridges, but Sanayi is all craft (except for a few token Belfast lager bottles in their fridge).

The Maslak branch has 24 taps, which you’ll usually find occupied by at least 15 beers — all of them are fully engaged for special events. Every beer available is brewed by one of the 10+ breweries in Turkey.  I started my visit with an English Gold (a 5% bitter), by 3 Kafadar, who are probably my favourite Turkish brewer.

It also has cats — lots of them lurking, often behind the bar, sometimes getting into little brawls. You can’t go anywhere in Turkey without running into cats, and Sanayi is no exception.

Sanayi 1-A doesn’t offer food other than crisps and nuts, but doesn’t at all mind if you pick up some food from the nearby food truck offering köfte and chips, or order from one of the many food delivery services.

On the following day I visited the Maslak Sanayi 1-A  again to meet friends (current and former Sanayi staff) and finished the afternoon with a bottle share of two different years of Efes annual Grape Ale (8%). It’s particularly good, especially considering it’s from a macro brewer.

All in all a great trip, returning to my favourite spots in the city and finding time to ride a few ferries and visit excellent coffee shops, while catching up with friends.

Dan Rowe

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