Heineken-owned Karlovacka Pivovara showed its deep knowledge of the Croatian beer scene and its needs by releasing its second alcohol-free beer on the market and proving that, after topping the redundant release of Sokol with the even more redundant release of Sokol Limun, it’s still able to top anything it releases in terms of uselesness.
The oh so hip and cool Karlovacko 0,0 Maxx (double the x, double the coolness... Maxx stands for maximum redundancy - don’t see what else it could stand for) contains both wheat and barley malt and is, as the name implies, alcohol free, unlike Karlovacko Rally, with just barley malt and its mighty 0,5% - for those that love that kick. It’s bound to stir up competition among beverages nobody buys (more than once), so it’ll be an exciting few months when dumbasses in marketing departments of other breweries start forcing the brewmasters to make THEIR versions, hopefully with alcohol in negative degrees or something, or even more different grains to beat Maxxxxxxx. Maybe they’ll even use hops nobody wiped their asses with. Or at all.
Honestly, in times like these, I’m starting to favor eugenics. |
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Originally posted by Marko
Repeating this since it was the last post of the page, and it’s important. :)
Anyway, the Third Croatian Homebrew Competition’s coming up!
The event will take place at the Magic Beer Room:
http://www.ratebeer.com/p/magic-beer-room-zagreb/19826/
The date is 7.6.2014!
Further information:
http://www.pivarstvo.info/forum//files/natjecanje2014_132.pdf
Judging by the events that happens before, this’ll be brilliant too :) And yes, it’s open for homebrewers (and visitors) from outside of Croatia!
I would love to bring a bottle or two of homebrew to submit. Would I have to be present for the contest?
Also, is there an English language version of the contest rules? Would need to know if I can drop the beers off somewhere (would be a bit early) or if I could find someone to hold them for me until it’s time to submit. |
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Well, the English language version is in that same PDF. :) Everything’s explained there. Though aren’t you leaving on the 7th? :/
Anyway, busy few days. Medvedgrad is releasing Svijetli Ale - a 4.3% Pale (or Golden?) Ale and a 5.5% Stout - and both are commercial firsts in Croatia! We’ll taste them tomorrow. :) |
One beer news from Slovenia.
To celebrate its 150 years of operation, Union Brewery will launch 4 new tastes, limited edition, which will be available in Mercator and Tuš supermarkets until the autumn.
The first one is already out, and supposedly it’s called Triglav and, according to Union, it’s characteristic is extra hoppy bittness.
Gots to try it :D |
Oooh, fancy :D. Can’t wait to go to Ljubljana again. :) Cheaper and faster than going home to Split. :/
Anyway, went to the tour / tasting / dinner at Medvedgrad with the homebrewer crowd. Hats off for the generosity of the people there and their support of the scene. The staff did their best to accommodate us and were pretty nice company in all.
The brewery/brewpub was definitely an interesting place to visit - and they are now offering "nano" brewing "plants", for homebrewers (of the richer sort), which seemed interesting enough - they are, after all, born of a beer plant making business.
The places are well known for their snacks, which were as great as ever, but the dinner we got was lovely too - I’d especially recommend the sausages.
They had two new beers available for us to try - three really, but I’ll get to that. As I said - the first ales which aren’t German-style wheat beers released in Croatia.
Their Svijetli Ale (which is a golden ale in this case) is a victim of sorts of the need to appeal to the lowest common denominator to make a profit. They aimed of a beer that would be like their lager (a VERY good beer for the style) - and made a beer that’s not even close. Ale yeast doesn’t automatically make a good, or interesting beer... Not wishing to offend/shock they likely scaled the hops down, too much so, in the end disappointing both the geeks and the laymen. They use Goldings (and Aurora) and could’ve made something lovely with them - but there are true enthusiasts among them and seem to be getting more and more into the craft scene - and I’m positive that this is a lesson learned, and that they’ll improve their next attempts.
There is a second version of the beer, which was cold conditioned in the end, so, perhaps, the first Croatian kölsch. Unfortunately, there are some problems with that one, but I dig what they were trying to do.
The Stout (which was more like my mental image of a porter) is, while not flashy (not that it needs to be), however, a very good beer for what it is, and I really hope that the general public will feel the same and support it. I know what I’ll be going for next time I’m there. :)
It was a great night at Samoborska, which proved, again, that we should support our local microbreweries and that the Croatian brewing scene is starting to grow rapidly. The tyranny and beercultoride the macros have inflicted upon the country is still visible in many aspects of the scene, but time will hopefully heal all wounds. :) |
Or not - the owner allegedly proceeded to talk massive shit about homebrewers and the craft beer scene to the people who visited the commercial tastings later on thinking all of them to be regular Joes from the street. Well, no, there were some beer geeks among them, as there were bound to be ffs, and word got out.
Apparently - homebrewers suck (and make beer in their bathtubs), BJCP and beer judging events are laughable, as are ideas about opening craft breweries - which they have just picked up randomly from the internet, not knowing what ales are and what a craft brewery really is. Oh, and the very idea of putting non-reinheitsgebot stuff in beer (probably aiming at spices as they used fruit) is laughable. And that’s just a part of it.
There goes the effort of some seemingly truly nice people down the drain thanks to an arrogant, ignorant and potentially butthurt fool. Not as sure about the brewery as I was not even a day ago and I’m so damn disappointed and a bit sad. 
Funny, the only spiced beer that was brought that night when the homebrewers visited was a wit, which was bloody great and proceeded to win a gold medal at the competition in Hungary two days after. But yeah, that’s just amateurs playing at judges so it doesn’t count, hurr hurr hurr. And it’s cool to mock beers you haven’t tried. Man, I so wish that what we’ve heard now isn’t true. :/ |
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Originally posted by MarkoNm
One beer news from Slovenia.
To celebrate its 150 years of operation, Union Brewery will launch 4 new tastes, limited edition, which will be available in Mercator and Tuš supermarkets until the autumn.
The first one is already out, and supposedly it’s called Triglav and, according to Union, it’s characteristic is extra hoppy bittness.
Gots to try it :D
Whoa... got other details... 9%, "extra hoppy", Union.
This will be... interesting...
Are they supposed to be revived old beers? I found some mention of another beer from Union called Triglav from way back when. |
I don’t believe they are revived old beers. They’re supposed to be new tastes.
The other three new beers Will be. From May on: Union Amber. From July on: Union Ležak. And from September on: Union Bok.
I guess the styles are obvious, but we’ll have to wait to try them all. |
Bujska Pivovara / San Servolo moved to new premises in the suburbs of Buje - operating as a brewpub/brewery now I guess. Their new Tamno is their best offering so far - a nice, aromatic, hoppy dark lager - and unlike the last two Svijetlos and Crvenos I’ve had from them - the refermentation didn’t kill the bottle I’ve had now - yaaay! The price - which was 25HRK is, however, insane. We’ll see how it fares - always glad to find a good new beer on the market.
The 2014 radler season brought us - apart from the nice Ožujsko Tamno Višnja that’s unrateable on ratebeer (72% juice), seemingly, something called "Karlovacko Laganini Radler Limeta" - a lime radler with, if my source is correct, cilantro and myrtle (?!). Looking at the name and the ingredients, aimed at the douchebag niche market, but hey - if they pulled it off correctly, who knows, it might actually be a nice summer drink. We’ll see once it hits distribution properly. |
