Yeah, around 14 should work fine. I’ll send you a pm. |
Anyway, it was great meeting MarkoNm, even if only for a minute or five. :) The first actual beer fest with only craft(oid) breweries that’s open for everyone was pretty much a success. The only problem was, of course, the location, which is nice and absolutely godawful at the same time (a nice little mall far in an eastern suburb) - and plenty of people didn’t go just because of it.
A "blind tasting" was organized where people could rate from 1 to 5 one beer from each of the breweries. Unfortunately, the beers would get warm and flat fast (decanted for anonymity), there was no water or anything provided between tastes... The poor girls assigned to that got bombarded with questions they couldn’t know the answers for etc. So pretty much counterproductive. Not sure which beer won, but it’s pretty irrelevant under those circumstances.
Nova Runda, Varionica and Zmajska made a pretty strong showing with their stuff again, and so did Visibaba - with revamped recipes for their entire range. Apparently Bob Barley is even better now. Only tried John Lemon, and it was certainly different, missing much of the bitterness it had possessed earlier, tasting more like regular Belgian ale than a wit for some reason, but OK. Visibaba also brought 3 Kabinet/Mikkeller collaborations and 2-3 other Kabinet beers (including the lovely Supernova). Nova Runda got constantly pestered for glasses and t-shirts, which they unfortunately couldn’t sell. Pretty cool for a country that had no proper scene a year ago.
Hold ’Em was there, of course, with their new marketing guy, a well known Croatian TV personality, Staroceško sold their lovely ABA too, showing their regular lagers as well, which are now thankfully and finally chlorophenol-free and better than the Croatian average. Didn’t hang out much around Medvedgrad and San Servolo (Bujska), the latter did bring a new beer - San Servolo Gold, a 6.5% pale lager refermented in the bottle. That concept sounds flimsy on paper and was flimsy in execution (very simple, clean and hardly interesting base lager attacked by stuffy yeasty notes), but the presentation was top notch as usual, so they might get some fans anyway.
It was cool seeing so many people there, interested in what’s going on, even on a rainy day, even in Nowheresville.
Unfortunately, I had to leave early on Saturday and couldn’t return for Sunday. |
Great meeting you too Marko. Maybe next time we’ll find some more time (this weekend in Novo mesto perhaps). And thanks for Vunetovo.
Otherwise it was a nice small fest with some interesting beers that I didn’t had the chance to try before.
Was excited about Varionica and Nova Runda, and pleasantly surprised by ABA.
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With big (for our standards, and very important) festivals in Ljubljana and, later, Zagreb coming up, more great news from the craft scene here.
Zmajska Pivovara, one of top 10 new breweries in the world for 2014 will be releasing their IPA called Pozoj, coming at 7.3%, relatively soon. :) |
Bunch of new stuff from Slovenia here. It’s getting harder to keep track of everything that’s going on.
Starting with Reservoir Dogs - their third horseman Starvation, a black IPA, is out, along with Su:Kubo, an IPA only available on tap.
Laško has sent out two of ther Special line beers - O3 Sour Cherry and Chestnut, and 02 Buckwheat.... looks promising, will see about the taste.
Pelicon has launched El Dorado a limited edition Pale Ale, and in about two weeks they are starting with Quantum DIPA.
HumanFish has made a new Imperial IPA as well.
Bevog Dirty Deetz is available starting today.
Mali Grad have launched India Red Ale, and India Pale Ale, plus limited edition of 108 Minut Gravitacije in collaboration with a Russian brewer.
And a couple new breweries.
Maister Brewery, a gypsy brewery, has made an amazing IPA General Maister, and are now preparing Single Hop Mosaic Pale Ale with a name of Jurij Vega. Should be in two weeks.
PV Brewery, a completely new brewery, has been present on Karavana domacih pivovarna with their lager named Legionar, and so-far experimental stout EXP85.
And in the end, Ljubljana Beer Festival is on in two weeks - 22. -23. May, Grad Kodeljevo.
And a message for Croatians thinking about visiting. A message from organizers:
on Saturday, 23 May we’ll organize a bus to take you from Zagreb straight to our Beer Fest. The bus will be leaving Zagreb’s train station at 10:30 in the morning and will depart Ljubljana between midnight and 1 AM the same day. If you want a ride to one of the best beer events in the region, drop us a line at info@festivalpiva.si.The cost of the transfer won’t exceed 10 EUR, so you’ll have plenty of change left to sample some amazing brews
That’s about it for now. Lots of stuff happening, so hopefully I managed to mention all of it. |
Holy shit! I’ll go bankrupt on the 23rd. :D Finally confirmed my reservation today.
Wonderful news about all the new stuff.
And some more good news from Croatia too - a micro has opened in Požega, called MBC. They’ve started brewing yesterday or something like that, so we’re expecting the first batch in some weeks I guess. :) They are a tiny setup, with 500l batches and will be doing beers on a seasonal basis - changing recipes to match the season. They will be starting with a simple single malt beer - because, basically, of the locals there, who are everything but used to craft beer or anything wilder than pale lagers, so they need to educate and bit by bit progress towards more complex stuff. For now, it’s like this, and it’s a completely logical start. It’s another micro opened and run by very competent homebrewers, so quality shouldn’t be an issue. Best of luck to them! |
Good to hear this. Hopefully I’ll manage to score some ot those when they come.
If you’re coming to Ljubljana festival, then some more good news. Pelicon will have a premier of another new beer there: Pilon, a French style Saison with flower blossoms.
And Vizir will be there with two new things: a beer with vanilla and caramel, and another one with garlic.
I also heard that Carniola is preparing Cereal Killer to premiere on a small festival in Logatec a week before, so they might also bring it to Ljubljana. |
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Nice, nice, nice!
Seems like I’ll know pretty much the entire bloody bus, both the regular beer people and several non-beer friends who signed up too.
A friend signed me up though before I could do it myself, hope he didn’t screw anything up. :D |
The festival was quite cool, despite the rain, mud and the absences. Bevog and Carniola were missed. Expected to see PV too, but not in the end.
Reservoir Dogs were quite good. Su:Kubo is OK, nice as a beer, less as an IPA, but still fine. Warrior’s quite OK too, Grim Reaper is quite good, Starvation is great!
Maister’s IPA disappointed me thoroughly, likely a bad batch, had an unmistakable Vizir note that Vizir manages to avoid itself now. Vega wasn’t ready I guess. Varissh, another new setup brewing there had it even worse. Red, diluted hop tea, socks, the IPA was saved a little by the bitterness, the Pussy Blue not as much. They will improve hopefully.
Vizir - got the newish Black Jack and one of the two Dr. Orel buckwheat beers. ICE is actually a fine experiment. The wine-based cideroid was a pleasant surprise too - like someone said... kinda like cvicek only better than any cvicek I’ve had. :D The Hoppy Saison brewed there was slightly flawed aroma-wise, but proved to be a tasty, interesting beer.
Štajerc’s hemp experiment, Roža, came out better than expected, though it’s hardly something one would drink on a daily basis or more than one of.
Pelicon - the Quantum DIPA came out very nice, deserving No.2 of the show. Out Of China had some great flavors going on, Pilon, the rose? saison wasn’t bad either. Coffee Stout tasted nice but lacked in body. Still, quality all-over for them, good job!
HumanFish’s Imperial IPA wasn’t as successful an interpretation, being a bit on the overly sweet side, but still a good beer. The Stout won gold and the SIPA won bronze - so the quality’s still there! :D
Kabinet brought Supernova and Bastardo which I’d definitely go for if I didn’t have enough new stuff to try. Their new lemon balm pale ale, Melissa, is a well executed experiment, would be a stunner if it was a bit more daring. Didn’t try the new Janis Hoplin I guess.
Mali Grad didn’t have their new specialties, but the Pale Ale / IPA / Robust Porter selection was quite respectable.
Zmajska debuted their Pozoj IPA there, and I like it! It’ll be great to see how it compares to Medvedgrad’s new batch of Fakin.
Looking at other, more foreign stuff, Pivoljub attracted a lot of attention with Fullers London Porter on tap etc. Primator’s Weizen got raves, deservedly so, though most of their other beers weren’t nearly as thrilling. Hanscraft was a disappointment for me, the Backbone Splitter didn’t stand out among the Slovenian (and Croatian) competition, potentially not being that fresh, and Black Nizza just isn’t a good IS.
Will definitely go next year! It was damn cool to judge in the finals too. :) |
The Croatian homebrew competition/festival is happening today. We were judging on Monday, Wednesday adn Friday, went through 240 out of 300 entries, finishing the rest hopefully this morning, and then lunch, the Mini-BOS and the BOS, all the while 5 taps are going at the same time, craft and homebrew and changing every 30 minutes. Damn crazy! |
