Hungarian beer
Hungarian beer has a long lager tradition around Budapest, but the scene you taste in the glass today is mostly new: craft brewers making hoppy and dark beers. Here you'll find Hungarian IPA, Stout and Pale Ale from Mad Scientist and Brew Your Mind, available from Amersfoort.
- In stock now7 beers
- Breweries2
Breweries from Hungary 2
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From home brew to the beer city of Kőbánya
Brewing in Hungary goes back a long way. The oldest Hungarian document that mentions beer is a will from 1152, which asks for a funeral meal with beer. Until the fourteenth century, beer was brewed at home. After that, monasteries started producing it seriously and breweries with a beer hall appeared.
The industry only really got going in the 1840s, when a law made it possible again for everyone to brew, sell and import beer. In the nineteenth century the first modern breweries opened in and around Pest, Sopron and Pécs, with brewmasters who mostly came from German-speaking regions.
The turning point was in Kőbánya, a district of Budapest that was originally a limestone quarry. The huge underground vaults turned out to be ideal for fermenting and lagering beer cool, and there was good water beneath the old quarries. Six breweries appeared and Kőbánya got the nickname "beer city".
What Hungary is known for
The classic Hungarian beer style is lager. The heyday of Austria-Hungary and the growth of Budapest laid the foundation for it. A key figure was the brewer Anton Dreher, who switched from top-fermented to bottom-fermented beer and is seen as the creator of Vienna lager in 1841. The Dreher family's brewery in Kőbánya became the largest in Hungary.
The twentieth century was less favourable. After the First World War, Hungary lost a large part of its brewing region through the Treaty of Trianon, while the wine regions largely stayed. Wine became cheap and beer consumption dropped. After the Second World War the breweries were nationalised, and in the communist era the Kőbányai Sörgyár supplied about 90 percent of Hungarian beer.
Since the 1990s, microbreweries have been appearing and the craft scene is becoming better known internationally. Names like Monyo Brewing Co., Mad Scientist and Horizont Brewing belong to that new generation. In central Budapest there is hardly a block without a pub with a good craft selection.
Hungarian beer at Hoptimaal
With us you'll find Hungarian beer from that new generation. Mad Scientist and Brew Your Mind are the Hungarian breweries in our range, and the styles you'll come across most often are IPA, Stout and Pale Ale.
From Mad Scientist you'll find, among others, Liquid Cocaine, Mango Bay and Popstar. Brew Your Mind is represented with, among others, Evermind and the Moment In Time 2025 releases, such as Heaven Hill Bourbon /w Mexican Vanilla and Rum & Triple Sec. Every brewery has its own page with us, with all its available beers in one list.
Frequently asked questions
What is typical Hungarian beer?
Traditionally that is lager: bottom-fermented beer in the Vienna style, which came about in the days of Austria-Hungary and was mainly brewed in Kőbánya. Today the scene is also about craft beer, and with us you'll find IPA, Stout and Pale Ale from it.
Which Hungarian breweries are well known?
The large breweries include Dreher, Borsodi, Pécsi and Heineken Hungaria. Among the craft brewers, Monyo Brewing Co., Mad Scientist and Horizont Brewing are well-known names. You'll find Mad Scientist and Brew Your Mind with us.
Why is Kőbánya called the beer city of Budapest?
Kőbánya was a limestone quarry, and the large underground vaults kept a stable, low temperature, ideal for lagering beer. Together with good water beneath the old quarries, that led to six breweries in the district.
Beer from other countries
- Dutch beer 175
- American beer 71
- Belgian beer 68
- Canadian beer 54
- German beer 37
- English beer 37
- Spanish beer 21
- Romanian beer 17
- French beer 16
- Swedish beer 15
- Norwegian beer 14
- Estonian beer 17
- Polish beer 11
- Irish beer 8
- Finnish beer 9
- Latvian beer 8
- Croatian beer 8
- Danish beer 8
- Portuguese beer 4
- Welsh beer 5
- Scottish beer 4
- Brazilian beer 3
- Ukrainian beer 2
- Greek beer 3
- Slovenian beer 3
- Czech beer 3
