Alfa Palace

Beautiful old shopping mall. Unfortunatly hardly any customers

It was a pretty goodshopping mall but the stores were all pretty much the same

A functionalist building right in the center of Brno. Has nice local shops plus a few services and cafés

Old-fashioned shopping mall. Some interesting stores. They also do a flea market occasionally.

A small shopping palce in Brno city centre. I visited here to shop spices in the shop Koreni od Sindibad.

Old style market place with interesting shops.

A couple of weeks ago while on holiday and visiting friends in Brno, I was introduced to Alfa Palace, the best new craft beer venue in city centre, by "The Master" aka David Hammacher. The guys who run this bar really know their beer. Unlike many other new craft beer bars that have opened in Brno over the last couple of years, the Alfa Palace is not a pretentious place at all. They have deliberately chosen to focus on the beer and not try and diversify into a range of spirits and wines. Though a little dark inside, they have not filled their bar with bric-a-brac fake interior rubbish. The Alfa Palace is presented more like an old bookmaker's with their offering of beer prices, serving size and abv painted in white chalk on a blackboard on the back wall of the bar. I've seen this style in other bars and it works, so why do something different? Above all, the Alfa Palace has three major benefits over other bars I have visited with the Master and other friends, that for a British traveller like me, really helps: 1. The barmen speak very good English. They can describe flavours and really meet the customer's requirements and expectations when you tell them what taste of beer you prefer. 2. The beer range is good. There were 20 or so shown on the backboard, so it's not over the top with too many, but there are a few in each type from zesty blondes to dark stouts. 3. The beer is, in the words of the Master "to die for". One of our trio chose a Chocolate flavoured beer. Most real ales and craft beers I've tasted over the years with chocolate names, have been just that; a name and colour and nothing more. This was a full bodied dark chocolate stout with all the flavour of a rich liquid chocolate but at 10% abv, the type of beer you should enjoy at the end of a meal or drinking session. Noticing our delight in this Chocolate beer, our beared barman offered us a sample of something called Greek Fire. Upon tasting this at first, it was like a slightly watered down version of the first but then after 5 seconds and breathing in the kick of fire touched our taste buds and we realised this too was something very special. If I were on a night out touring a few bars in Brno, this would be my last stop because chocolate flavoured beer would finish off the evening perfectly. Having said that, we only tasted a handful of their beers, so as it's a proper bar, and most of the beer snobs and young pretenders haven't found it yet, I wouldn't object to spending the evening here. I'll have to see what the Master says next time I'm in Brno.

We had good Arabic coffee here. They have English speaking staff . Various options of sweets.