Not sure why more people haven't chosen this as a destination. We decided to go as a tie in to a trip to Paris, mainly as a place to stay while visiting Auschwitz. Krakow has a thriving craft beer scene, but the beers IMO are where the US was 15-20 years ago. I suspect it is due to issues sourcing ingredients. But let's discuss Krakow first. The city was not devastated by WWII the way Warsaw was leveled. As such it has all the old world charm you find in portions of Paris or Brussels/Brugge. We stayed in the Kazimierz area and just by dumb luck our hotel (Hotel Karmel) was smack dab in the middle of it and within a two-three block radius we had our choice of restaurants and bars all of which were fantastic. The other main area is Old Town and that is a 20 minute walk from the middle of Kazimierz and we barely scratched the surface of it.
Most every restaurant or bar had a beer on and and if nothing else it was a local Pilsner which was quite clean and refreshing. Often the beers would have names like IPA or West Coast IPA (I found that amusing) and at best they were pale ales. Often ales would have issues with diacetyl, but I did not find any to have contamination or sanitation issues out of anything I tried. It was apparent the hops were not exactly what we would use. I suspect they either used what was available so the bitterness and hop flavors were more rounded, or they had imported hops and the hops had suffered making the journey. Because of the diacetyl issues from more than one brewery I think their ale yeast selections must also be limited. We did not actually go to any brewery in the area, but there are several. We found two craft beer bars each within two blocks of the hotel. Craftownia has something like 18 taps and I think all but two were local. Omerta has two craft beer bars each with about 15 taps and about 60% were local.
Most of the time the beers come in two sizes, 25cl and 50cl. The price varies, but a 25cl in most places is 6-8zl, and a 50cl is 7-10zl. Now here is where it gets crazy. At Craftownia we had several drinks and some water and spent 38zl which equates to $10.76. It is important to remember to tip in Poland using cash. Even when you pay with a card have some cash for tip. Also keep in mind that 10zl note is $2.81 (@ today's exchange rate). We had a fairly large meal with beers, pierogies, and sausage for 60zl ($16.99). We ate at a "high end" restaurant one night and our bill without tip was 81zl or $22.60. One breakfast was a huge omelet, scrambled egg with tomato and onion, and four coffees which was 31zl or $9.06 so I gave her a 10zl tip. Eventually I just took money out of the ATM and paid in local currency, but made sure we used it all up before we left other than a few coins. The Polish currency looks like Euro so don't mix up the two if you are traveling there.
You can walk the entire city if you desire. We left our hotel and went to the Jewish Ghetto, Schindler's factory, back to Wawel castle, Old Town, and back to Kazimierz in a day. Uber is plentiful and they also have a tram system which appears to become very congested at times on certain routes. We didn't have time to give that a whirl.