Over the past few years I’ve travelled across Europe by train and bicycle, visiting many excellent beer bars. Here are my favourite five, in no particular order. They’re not famous classics, but personal discoveries.

Axiom Pub – Brno, Czech Republic

Brno easily lives in the shadow of Prague, but the city is home to some of Central Europe’s most interesting beer bars. Axiom is modern, nerdy and international. Czech lager tradition shares the taps with experimental IPAs and dark stouts. It’s the kind of place you go when you want to think – not just drink.

One unusual detail: the bar keeps two refrigerators for the beer. One at about 5°C for the hop-forward beers, and another at about 12°C for the stouts. Respect.

Here I’m even welcome behind the counter. The permanently slightly tipsy bartender lights up when I tell him I cycled to his hometown Boskovice on my Brompton the day before. He’s delighted – and for a moment I feel more like a guest than a customer.

BeerGeek Bar – Prague, Czech Republic

Prague is the home of pilsner. BeerGeek is the counter-movement. A large selection, an international focus, and always something unexpected on tap. This is the kind of place where you end up staying longer than planned.

An unexpected friendship starts with Emma from Fuglafjørður in the Faroe Islands. She gives me a tattoo on my shoulder – with a ballpoint pen. A memory written directly on the skin. I’m probably not entirely sober when I roll up the sleeve of my Colombian football jersey.

The Store – Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

Luxembourg is full of surprises. A small city, but a cosmopolitan crowd. Here French, Belgian and German beer cultures meet in one sophisticated setting. Proof that size doesn’t determine quality.

The Serbian-born hostess provides wonderful service. As a snack with the flawless beer she produces a large smoked sausage and slices it with a sharp butcher’s knife. The sausage disappears quickly, and I just manage to defend myself from the women at the neighbouring tables – who cast hungry looks not at me, but at the sausage. It happens to be the last one in the fridge, and I get it with a wink from the hostess.

Pułapka Craft Beer – Gdańsk, Poland

Poland is one of Europe’s most dynamic beer nations right now, with breweries such as Browar Stu Mostów, Funky Fluid and TankBusters. In Gdańsk we end up at a place that has almost every beer from Pinta. Pułapka – “The Trap” – is the name, and it fits. You get caught. A bold selection, local breweries, intense flavours.

I’m sitting with my back to the entrance when I suddenly feel a hand on my shoulder. Behind me stands an old customer from the days when I ran my company, smiling broadly. I realise that I’m wearing the company logo – my own name – across my back. My friend won’t give up until he has invited us to his table and insisted on buying beer for the rest of the evening.

Pipa Bar – Slavonski brod, Croatia

Slavonski Brod is not a town you travel to for the beer. That is precisely why the surprise is so pleasant. We are in northern Croatia – far from the tourist routes along the Adriatic – and this is a detour well worth taking.

The sign pointing to the toilet makes us start humming the Swedish children’s song about the three old men from Gingerbread Land. For a Swede it is just a funny sign, but for me, having lived in Colombia and thinking partly in Spanish, it is also a reminder of how universal children’s words for pee and poop are. In fact, the sign says more about the soul of the bar than any IPA on the menu.

As if that were not enough, the brewer from Funky Brewery, just across the street, happens to drop by. He enthusiastically explains how they never skimp on the hops in their IPA. It is a place full of warmth, charm and humour – and the kind of detour you do not soon forget.