The Latvian capital Riga has been somewhere on my wishlist for a couple of years. I was enamored with the images of its beautiful Old Town online and really wanted to see it for myself. Finally, we managed to get a chance to book a short trip there and it was one of those rare occasions where beer wasn’t a deciding factor in our visit.
However, Riga surprised me. The beer was, on the whole, fantastic and so full of the country’s heritage that I feel it’s a place that needs to be more on the beer lovers’ radar (unlike neighbours Lithuania and Estonia, the country doesn’t have its own Untappd badge, for example). In a short space of time, I tried multiple beers that were like nothing I’d ever tasted and featuring unique and distinctly Latvian ingredients.
Here’s a look at some of the places we visited, and I hope that, as beer has become so much more global, that more people will get the chance to try Latvian beer – especially from the fantastic Labietis brewery – in the future.
The Ale in Kaleigh 