May 12th, 2021 - The European Beer Challenge, or the beer Oscars as connoisseurs call it, is the most important and prestigious European beer competition that brings together the most elite European wholesale beer buyers who are also the judges at the competition itself. For the second year in a row, Craft Brewery Varionica went home with 3 Oscars. 

With extremely rigorous criteria, Varionica was awarded four gold medals at this year's beer Oscar. Among thousands of beer samples from 39 countries, double gold was won by Deep Dive IPA, while single gold went to Neon Stout and Siesta Session IPA.

As hrturizam.hr reports, at last year’s competition, they also won double gold for their Pale ale debut, and gold for Chef’s beer, and bronze for Noel's passion sour. Even greater success in 2021 only confirmed that Varionica had become a serious world beer player who deservedly belongs to the very top of world brewing.

How serious the European Beer Challenge is, is shown not only by the rigorous selection of judges but also by tasting and evaluating the beer itself. Namely, this beer Oscar uses the method of triple tasting blindly, which means that the judges have absolutely no information about the beers they taste; they have not seen the packaging, that they do not know from which country the beer originates or their price range. And perhaps most importantly, judges are not allowed to argue with each other about their impressions.

"The fact is that the European Beer Challenge is one of the strictest beer competitions, but that is why we are even more pleased with the recognition we received at it, and in a way, it is our motive for further work," said Matija Mrazek, master brewer of craft brewery Varionica.

"This year's winner of double gold, Deep Dive IPA, although still a bit unusual for our market, has become part of our basic beer offer, and we are overjoyed that it is now officially recognized by experts with such high marks. We surpassed last year’s success as we won all the gold medals this time. All of our standard beers now have either gold or double gold! So now we have formally achieved an enviable standard," concluded Davor Simičić, CEO of the craft brewery Varionica.

This gold-awarded, but also all other beers of the craft brewery Varionica, can now be found in a large number of restaurants and cafes where quality is important, and on the shelves of more than 300 stores of retail chains Spar, Vrutko, Kaufland, Konzum, Plodine, Food, Roto Dynamics, Decentia, Victa, Tommy and Lonia. All beers are also available in the Varionica webshop.

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September 14, 2020 – Zagreb craft ale specialists The Garden Brewery celebrate the sale of their 3,000,000th can with a competition to win a year's supply of brilliant beer

Summer hasn't quite gone as planned for anyone in 2020. Some of The Garden Brewery team expected to be spending much of the season on the coast in Tisno. Set up in part by the team that ran The Garden Festival, for them, it should have been another summer of music, dancing, and welcoming thousands of international visitors to the many festivals they host on their site near Murter island. But, all of the festivals were cancelled.

Right at the start of the Coronavirus outbreak, the Garden Tisno festivals faced the unknown and some tough decisions. By mutual agreement with the site, it was decided to put the health and safety of visitors and staff first and cancel all of 2020's events. But, The Garden Brewery is no longer reliant on festival-goers to buy their beer. Just four years into their beer-making operations in Žitnjak, Zagreb, the beer is now exported to 26 countries on three continents. In the past week, they have sold their 3 millionth can of beer.

Despite the hit of Coronavirus, their business has actually grown by 40% in the past year, necessitating the expansion of their production facility in Zagreb (they are installing a new canning line to aid capacity). They currently have over 20 full-time staff at The Garden Brewery – mostly Croatian - and have so far made over 80 different kinds of beer. In 2019 the brewery was named 'Best EU brewery' by Beer 52, a UK-based home delivery subscription service for craft beers. It's the largest of its kind in the world and over 400, 000 public votes were cast in the competition.

To celebrate the milestone of its 3millionth can, The Garden Brewery is giving ale fans the chance to win a year's supply of beer for them and a friend. 24 beers will be delivered each month, for 12 months, to the winner and their nominated friend. To enter the competition, you just need to sign up for The Garden Brewery's monthly newsletter here

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