I might be stating the bleeding obvious here, but without doubt the best thing to happen to Warsaw this year was the arrival of the multi-tap. I practically cartwheeled to Cuda Na Kiju when it first opened, an exercise I repeated when Chimelarnia and Kufle i Kapsle followed swiftly after. So, you can imagine how I glowed when news filtered through of not another multi-tap, but a hyper-tap!
Opened four weeks back, I was so thrilled I cut out of work extra early so I could be one of the first punters in there. As it turns out, that was the wrong thing to do – when I arrived to Piw Paw (about two minutes after they’d officially opened), the fridges were bare and only 50% of the 57 taps were up and running. I left underwhelmed: a hyper tap? More an over-hyped tap.
Of course, it’s wrong to dismiss a place just after they’ve opened. So, a month on, how have they fared? I returned on Tuesday, as part of an epic tap crawl that left me mentally paralyzed for the following three days. This time round, the fridges were full; the taps, as well, were all up and running. But there were disappointments. First, the serving system. Now, in fairness, this is a problem that effects all multi-taps and is not going to be solved until all insist on two separate queues: one for those who want to faff about asking questions, and another for those who know what they want and want it today.
There are other annoyances as well: the toilet. I don’t wish to start a gender war here, nor present myself as a chauvinistic swine, but women do tend to linger about in the toilet far longer than men. So to have one unisex trap is clearly not going to work. And so it proves. For all this though, the biggest failing is the beer itself. In my eyes, the other three tap bars have done a great job on presenting breakthrough Polish breweries, not to mention cult foreign ones like Brew Dog, Lindemans, Thistly Cross, etc. So the line-up here is, by comparison, a little bit dull. Don’t get me wrong, Warsaw is clearly richer for having Piw Paw. But does it match up to the other multi-taps that have won my appreciation? Not yet it doesn’t. (Words: AW; Photo: Facebook)
Piw Paw ul. Żurawia 32/34 (enter from Parkingowa)
