As a craft beer geek, I tried to visit all the renowned craft beer bars of Budapest I read about at specialised craft beer websites. Craft Head turned out to be an absolute winner with regard to the best complex quality of beer and service...to price ratio due to all this:
- all the 2 dcl. "beer tasting samples" were served to me in an ideal temperature and all beers were fresh, which is not so common even in "beer capitals" such as Prague. This is a proof to me that they keep beer barrels cooled properly all the time as well as that they clean the pipes and tap equipment regularly and properly;
- they had a wide selection of all key beer styles from Budapest and Hungary based breweries, from both "real physical craft/microbreweries" as well as "former home brewers' virtual breweries that brew their beers at external craft/microbreweries" (I do not know proper English terms for this as I only read Czech and Slovak craft beer magazines and websites);
- given a beautiful historical building and rather upscale furniture, as well as a table service by waiters in suits etc., the prices were very reasonable (most beers, incl. IPA, less than 1000 forints per 2 dcl. glass), given also the location right in the centre of the capital city.
Unless you are a beer brewer, a beer tasting geek or just a rich person, I see no reasons to pay about tripple prices for similar quaity beers at bars like Hops bar, or double prices at weird places on housing estates such as Jonas pub. While I understad and respect what MadHouse means for the Budapest craft beer scene, I did not enjoy my beer tasting there, as I paid double to tripple prices compared to similar craft beers in Prague, without finding any of the MadHouse beers outstanding in any way (all tasted OK to me, but none was worth the price for me), and serving 1 dcl. beer samples outside of tasting them right at a bar seems a bit unprofessional to me, as beers in just 1 dcl. glasses simply get warm on their way from the bar to the table. In this sense, if one also wants to enjoy a typical esthetics and vibe of Budapest, as well as beer samples tasting, I am unaware of a better place to sit down and enjoy as CraftHead - feel free to suggest to me at pmzahr@gmail.com.
Some of the tourists or maybe even those "show off teenage Erazmus" large parties that complained about food and service in the reviews below just were not intelligent enough to read that this is not a restaurant, but a bistro, which means that there is a kitchen serving craft dishes, but not a large team of chefs able to prepare like ten different dishes at the same time. For these "Erasmus and other large parties" I can recommend going for a dinner to just any restaurant that has a word restaurant in its name near the legendary Szimpla Kert, and move to Szimpla to socialise in the best way one can in Budapest, chosing Hungarian craft beer or just traditional Pilsner Urquell or just some cheaper corporate Hungarian beers for those who are not craft beer geeks. Also here at the Craft Head, they had some medium size brewery beer from the Czech Republic, which I guess is the same brewery where they brew their own beers, but as I was fully focused on traditional microbreweries and "flying former home brewers" from Budapest I forgot which Czech medium size breweries this was (it was one of these traditional Czech medium size breweries which are fine in general outside of craft beer geeks tastings|.
I did not try pairing Hungarian craft dishes with Hungarian craft beers yet, but on my next trip to Budapest I will give it a try the most probably here at the Craft Head.More