History
A global idea, and how it reached a pub in Warsaw.
Where it began
Astronomy on Tap started in New York in April 2013, when the astronomers Meg Schwamb and Emily Rice held the first event at the Way Station, a bar in Brooklyn. The format was simple: take researchers out of the lecture hall, put them in front of people with a drink in their hand, and let the audience ask whatever it likes.
It spread quickly. Within a couple of years there were events on several continents, and today the network covers cities all over the world, each chapter run by local volunteers. Everything is free, and nobody gets paid. See astronomyontap.org for the full network.
Warsaw
Warsaw's first Astronomy on Tap was started in 2019 by Milena Ratajczak. It ran for only a few nights: the pandemic closed the pubs in 2020, and the series stopped before it had really begun.
It came back in December 2025, at The Taps, a pub on Henryka Sienkiewicza. The first evening brought together two researchers working in the city, a room that filled up faster than anyone expected, and the quiz that has been part of every event since. Milena has since returned to the stage as a speaker, talking about exoplanets in February 2026.
Six events later, the relaunched series has hosted researchers from Polish institutes and from abroad, on everything from meteorites and interstellar comets to dark energy, hidden black holes and machine learning. The talks are in English, the entry is free, and the audience ranges from astronomy students to people who came for a beer and stayed for the stars.
Our events so far
- #1 — The Taps. Anna Durkalec on barely visible galaxies; Fraser Gillan on comets and interstellar rocks.
- #2 — The Taps Pub. Milena Ratajczak on exoplanets; Nandini Hazra on how large telescopes can be.
- #3 — The Taps Pub. Wojciech Hellwing on the crisis in cosmology; Priscila Pessi on stellar deaths.
- #4 — The Taps Pub. Denis Burgarella on how we are built by the Universe; Krzysztof Lisiecki on stones from the sky.
- #5 — The Taps Pub. Łukasz Wyrzykowski on hidden black holes; Giuliano Lorenzon on the universe in a grain of dust.
- #6 — Pardon, To Tu. Tom Sedgwick on cosmic discovery with AI; Pratik Dabhade on the invisible universe.