Restored breweries should brew and purvey craft beers. Polessk Brewery does.
7 July 2026 – Polessk Brewery: Revisited in the autumn of 2025
POLESSK BREWERY, formerly the Albert Blankenstein Brewery, founded in 1840, is no small building, so, not surprisingly, the renovation project on which I expatiated in a post entitled Restoring the Polessk Brewery (2021) is still ongoing. During autumn past, I took time out to revisit this splendid neo-Gothic monolith, whose social and economic significance and, more to the point, the nature of the products that it historically purveys – and here we are talking beer – conjoined with its architectural style, have everything going for them that appreciation could desire.
Prior encounters, of which I believe there were three, were either undertaken in summer, the height of the tourist season, or coincided with special events, so it felt rather odd but no less fascinating to venture to this exotic place in an out-of-season capacity when other mortals were busy elsewhere, doing what, I have no idea, when they could, like me, have been up to something not without validity, such as supporting their local brewery by toasting its venerable history with beer once again brewed on its premises.
The feature image shows the Albert Blankenstein Brewery reproduced in postcard format during its turn-of-the-20th-century heyday. Comparisons of this view taken from the front of the brewery can be made with the photographs taken by us of the restorative process as it appeared in 2021: see Restoring the Polessk Brewery.
It did not bother me a jot, on completing the flight of stairs and making an entrance into what is effectively the brewery’s main reception hall, that apart from Olga and me, the only other evident person was the young chap behind the bar. Ye who are acquainted with my predilections and lifelong habits will not need me to tell you that the motive for this reprisal, I am not ashamed to say, was to ascertain if the worthy project had remained true to its stated trajectory and was now, as in days of old, brewing and selling beer again, in which regard I am pleased to disclose I could not have been more delighted.
Albeit a little early in the day for a wise and sensible man like me to initiate imbibing, as there was no one else to do it for me, it would have been rude, as the saying goes, had I deferred for the sake of propriety an act that seemed unconditionally proper in contrast to the alternative, which would have been to observe misguidedly a churlish point of temperance. Besides, the day it was rather cold, so what could be more appropriate than warming it up with a chilled glass of beer?
Barrels and what have you. What could be more natural? 
Mick Hart, enjoying history at the Polessk Brewery. 
Mick Hart reflects on good beer at Polessk Brewery. 
Just one of many rooms in this capacious brewery! 
They’ve spelled “beer” incorrectly, but we know what it is. 
Wholesome and natural, that’s beer for you. 
If it was for sale, I would have bought it. 
Highly decorated traditional German beer bottles. 
Girders and traditional wooden beer casks – a fine sight indeed!
Polessk Brewery: Revisited in the autumn of 2025
As there was no one to compete with, which meant that we had the unbridled run of the place, there was ample space and opportunity for getting reacquainted with this fine old building’s history, aided and abetted to no unexceptional extent by its superb exhibition graphics and many excellent didactic panels, and all the while enjoying in their various appointed places scattered memorabilia of assorted brewing shapes and kinds, all of which, in their obsolescence, were glorious and engaging. The fact that this educational as well as recreational tour can be undertaken, as it should, whilst indulging in the very product on which the 19th-century brewing plant had built its reputation enhances and consolidates the overall experience
Indeed, whilst indulging in absorption, I was so absorbed by industrial history that I bought two litre bottles of the end result to take away for further contemplation, as there was little doubt in my mind to instigate the contrary that I would not give them my best attention later that evening at home. And on this score, I could hardly have been more accurate than if history yearned to prove to me that it does indeed repeat itself, as we are frequently led to believe it does by those who know better than you and I. An exotic doctrine, to be sure! But perfectly acceptable if the space or place prescribed by history to which we must return is one we are ready to vouch for and one that is worth revisiting, and here we need to introduce that unequivocal asseveration that the Polessk Brewery has worked so hard for and which, therefore, it so richly deserves. Praise where praise is due: Raise your glasses, ladies and gentlemen; let’s drink to the brewery’s continued success!
Where it is and how to get to it
The Polessk Brewery
Rabochaya Ulitsa, 3, Polessk, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, 238630
Tel: +7 921 262-60-28
Location: 31 miles (50km) away from Kaliningrad
Travel time and cost by taxi: approximately 45 minutes from Kaliningrad; fare approximately £20 (2,062 roubles)
Travel time by bus 152: approximately 1.5 hours from Kaliningrad; fare from £2.57 (265 roubles)
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