2026 / Culture and everyday lifeCulture and everyday lifeПБПHow did people drink beer in the 18th-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth? Drawing on Jędrzej Kitowicz, we explore regional beer traditions, unusual drinking vessels, the game “piwo — dobre — nalej”, and the political role of alcohol at noble assemblies.
Read ↗
2026 / Beer History / ResearchBeer History / ResearchПБПHow did Antoni Tyzenhauz’s economic reforms influence brewing in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania during the second half of the eighteenth century? Czech brewers, masonry breweries, malt production and hop cultivation are examined through historical studies and archival documents.
Read ↗
2025 / Recipes and reconstructionsRecipes and reconstructionsПБПIn 1721, Gabriel Rzączyński described three wells in Grodno whose water was exceptionally suitable for brewing. We explore the city's water supply, search for its historic wells, investigate the Kuntz brewery and recreate a traditional dark Bock-style beer through experimental brewing.
Read ↗
2025 / Sources and documentsSources and documentsПБПHow was beer brewed in Belarusian lands at the beginning of the 18th century? The 1704 inventory of Sapockin reveals two brewhouses, brewing regulations, production fees, lease arrangements and the role of a watermill. Using this town in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as an example, we explore the economic history of Belarusian brewing.
Read ↗
2025 / Beer History / ResearchBeer History / ResearchПБПWhat was beer like in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth during the 17th and 18th centuries? Drawing on Gabriel Rzączyński’s 1721 work, this article explores beer varieties and prices, the grain trade, brewing centers in Belarus, Lithuania, and Poland, the importance of water, and historical beliefs about beer’s properties.
Read ↗
2025 / Culture and everyday lifeCulture and everyday lifeПБПA source from 1700 preserves a detailed description of a pagan spring ritual involving beer, also known from the chronicle of Maciej Stryjkowski. A priest drank beer from a vessel without using his hands and then threw it behind his back. The text explicitly mentions Lithuanians, Ruthenians and other peoples of the region.
Read ↗
2025 / Beer History / ResearchBeer History / ResearchПБПThis article examines three seventeenth-century medical sources that describe beer and honey-based drinks, their properties, and their effects on health. Particular attention is given to references to Lithuania and the eastern lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as regions associated with brewing and traditional mead making.
Read ↗
2025 / Related drinksRelated drinksПБПSources from the 16th–19th centuries describe drinks made from hogweed that were fermented and consumed instead of beer in Lithuania, Poland and neighbouring lands. Some of this evidence is directly connected with Grodno, Polesia and other territories of present-day Belarus. Based on these sources, I propose a hypothesis: early “borshch” may originally have been a fermented, probably low-alcohol liquid base similar to kvass or light beer, with the name only later passing to the soup we know today.
Read ↗
2025 / Sources and documentsSources and documentsПБПIn 1658, Jan Amos Comenius published Orbis Sensualium Pictus, a famous illustrated textbook that included a chapter on brewing. This article examines how the book circulated in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, what its brewery illustration actually showed, and why an alembic appeared alongside the brewing equipment.
Read ↗
2025 / Recipes and reconstructionsRecipes and reconstructionsПБПA historical study of gramatka, English Buttered Beere and European beer soups. Sixteenth- to nineteenth-century recipes, Sigismund I, Harry Potter, spices in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and an original reconstruction of a hot beer drink.
Read ↗