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.
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2026 / Culture and everyday lifeCulture and everyday lifeПБПHow did coffee transform the morning habits of noblewomen in the eighteenth-century Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth? Historian Jędrzej Kitowicz recounts how coffee replaced a traditional beer-based breakfast soup known as gramatka and, in his view, helped curb excessive consumption of strong spirits.
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2025 / Breweries and placesBreweries and placesПБПWhat did a brewery on a seventeenth-century magnate estate look like? An inventory of the Radziwiłł family's Dojlidy estate, dated 17 November 1628, offers a remarkable glimpse into its brewing operations, including a copper brewing kettle, malthouse, malt-drying facilities, barrels and grain-storage buildings. We examine this historical document to discover what it can — and cannot — tell us about brewing technology, production and the estate economy.
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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.
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2025 / Related drinksRelated drinksПБПThe history of harelka (gorzałka) and grain-based distillation in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, based on Gabriel Rzączyński's 1721 work. Discover how strong spirits were produced, which grains and spices were used, why Gdańsk's anise-flavoured spirit became an export product, and what role distilled beverages played in the culture and medicine of our ancestors.
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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.
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2025 / Related drinksRelated drinksПБПMead had a centuries-old history in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and was regarded as a northern counterpart to wine. Drawing on Gabriel Rzączyński’s 1721 work, this article explores historical accounts of honey and mead from Lithuania, Ruthenia, Samogitia, Volhynia, Courland and neighbouring regions, with particular attention to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the lands of present-day Belarus.
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2025 / Related drinksRelated drinksПБПSixteenth- and seventeenth-century sources describe extraordinary quantities of honey in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and neighbouring lands — including tales of honey-filled traps, bears, and a peasant rescued from a hollow tree by a frightened she-bear.
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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.
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2025 / Beer History / ResearchBeer History / ResearchПБПIn 1659, Andreas Cellarius described an unusual noble hall in Danzig where distinguished townsmen could pay a fixed fee and drink beer until the evening while listening to instrumental music. What did this place look like, and how closely did it resemble a modern beer festival?
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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.
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