Does beer exist in Istanbul?

April 27, 2009 7:10 AM

Does good beer or wine exist in Turkey? I'm staying in Istanbul for a few months. I've found the local food quite nice, but the beer & wine suck mightily. How do I find imported Belgian or German beer, or good French or Spanish wine. I hear Georgian wine is basically the best Eastern European wine. How might one find it? What about Greek options?

Does anyone in Istanbul sell Chimay, Leffe, Franziskaner, Paulaner, etc.? I've found one little brewhouse near Taksim that makes their own beer, which seems alright, well better then Efes. Are there any good smaller brewers around Istanbul?

I'm pretty specific & unreasonable about wine, strongly preferring Savagnin based wines from Jura, but I'm happy to try other stuff, especially Georgian or Greek. I also like the Spanish Muscatel, although definitely not the French Muscat. Maybe I'd like some Eastern European variations on Muscat? I'll need to visit Poland at some point actually.

posted by jeffburdges to food & drink (11 comments total)

If you want to try Greek wine then don't miss Retsina. It's an acquired taste to say the least, some people love it though.
posted by fire&wings at 7:20 AM on April 27

We weren't able to find any decent alcoholic beverages (i.e. anything besides Efes) there last year outside of fancy, fancy clubs and hotel bars. It was awful.

Also, I've heard good things about the Taps Microbrewery (loud) in Gebze, Istanbul; they are run by an American and apparently they sell "Rauchbier, Dunkel, Hefeweizen, Stout, Vienna Lager, Kolsch, Red Ale and Strong Ale" which are hopefully better than Efes.
posted by halogen at 7:23 AM on April 27

I'm pretty sure you won't care for Georgian wines. Tend to be sweetish low acid reds. Reputation is better then reality - and if you have a palate for weird French stuff (I do too - its not meant as an insult) its just not going to appeal. Back in '05 I went to a few wineries east of Tbilisi and none of them offerend much that was fantastic (sort of fun tho - except the time I realized the plastic container I was being served out of was previously used to hold pesticides)
posted by JPD at 7:35 AM on April 27

Learn to love raki, tolerate Efes, and buy some good scotch as an occasional treat.
posted by lbergstr at 7:39 AM on April 27

I shared this on Twitter and got a 2nd shoutout for Taps.
posted by k8t at 9:23 AM on April 27

If you want to try Greek wine then don't miss Retsina.

Nonsense. You should try retsina just because it's a basic feature of Greek life (and if you find you like it, it's incredibly cheap—I used to buy big bottles of the stuff for a few bucks in Astoria), but it has about as much to do with Greek wine as Bud does with American beer. Miles Lambert-Gócs did an excellent book, The Wines of Greece (1990), which I highly recommend if you can find a copy; my personal wine recommendations would start with xinomavro (red) and robola (white). That said, I don't know how available it is in Turkey, or how wise it would be to order it.

And what JDP said about Georgian wines. I was deeply disappointed when they became available in the US and I got to try them. I'm sure if you get the stuff from a goatskin at a convivial dinner in a little vine-shaded patio in Georgia, it's delicious, though.
posted by languagehat at 11:00 AM on April 27

There are two Taps locations that I know of in Istanbul. I didn't know about the one in Gebze. And Gebze is really far from the city; unless you have a car, it'd be a PITA to go there.

There's one in Nisantasi district. I would not be able to tell you where it is but ask anyone around there and they'll tell you.

The other one is in Bebek. That also should be easy to find by asking someone once you are in Bebek.

Disclaimer: I'm from Istanbul but I don't live there anymore. PM if you need more assistance.
posted by the_dude at 11:01 AM on April 27

Oh sorry. There might be another one in Taksim (around the end of Beyoglu street, by the area called Tunel).

Also, there are some boutique liquor shops in Bebek area where you can find some unique stuff you would not be able to find any other place in Istanbul. Those places cater to foreigners a lot (like teachers at Robert College and all) so they have interesting stuff. Kind of costly but you cannot have it all.
posted by the_dude at 11:03 AM on April 27

You might be a bit fancy for my tastes, but I can confirm there is a Turkish licensee for Beck's, it was a gray market import here in Australia for a while. It was "fully imported" Becks.
It tasted like Becks.
posted by bystander at 5:59 AM on April 28

Eppes Dark and Eppes Pilsner are beers found throughout Greece and Turkey, and are quite fantastic beers. I can't remember if they're greek or turkish in origin, but I remember being pleasantly surprised and refreshed.
posted by Jon_Evil at 5:28 PM on April 29

Thanks, I'll see if I can find Taps, but google maps hasn't been terribly clear yet.

No I don't consider Beck's drinkable, nor any pilsner. I imagine Jon_Evil means Efes instead of Eppes, well Efes is the specific atrocity that prompted this post. Efes has a wheat beer called Gusta, which is drinkable, but gets boring.
posted by jeffburdges at 10:07 AM on April 30