September the 1st, 2021 - The Zagreb Varionica brewery has managed to wow the crowd at Hong Kong's Asia Beer Challenge, highlighting the blossoming world of Croatian craft brewing on a traditionally hard to impress market.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Sergej Novosel Vuckovic writes, the popular Zagreb Varionica brewery is only continuing its success at global competitions and beer tastings. After winning four beer Oscars at the European Beer Challenge in London, the most important and influential beer competition and evaluation in all of Europe back in May this year, its beers have now conquered the largest continent of all - Asia.

The Zagreb Varionica brewery's medals were awarded in Hong Kong, at the Asia Beer Challenge 2021. It is the largest and most prestigious beer competition in all of Asia, a continent that drinks as much as half of all global hop-based drinks in the modern day. As such, the Asian market is quite difficult to impress.

The gold medal in the American IPA category went to the Hacker black hat edition, a beer recently brewed for and in collaboration with one of Croatia's leading software companies Combis; Varionica's now classic Pale ale also took home gold. The silver medal went to Siesta session IPA, and the bronze to Pop! Lager.

"These aren't the first medals we've received and we're glad that we've managed to maintain a high standard of quality," the co-owner of the Zagreb Varionica brewery, Davor Simicic, said in a recent press release. However, the competition at which they did so well speaks volumes about the sheer value of these awards - samples of their beers were sent to Hong Kong by renowned brands such as Ayinger, Rodenbach, Palm, Hopster, Hofmeister and others. Those samples were then evaluated by very strict criteria, the method of blind tasting, in order to ensure objective and reliable findings.

From now on, therefore, bottles of ''trophy'' beers made by the Zagreb Varionica brewery can be decorated with new medals from the Asian beer challenge, which makes them irresistible to both traders and consumers, they say from the brewery.

"These new medals aren't accidental, but are a reflection of our true love for beer and our commitment to quality, this is a great success of our entire team," said the co-owner and chief brewer of Varionica, Matija Mrazek.

For more, make sure to follow Made in Croatia.