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.

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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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December 2, 2020 - Chef's Beer is a unique beer that is a joint project of chef Mate Janković, Zmajska pivovara, Bibich Winery, Varionica, and Slovenian Barut brewing & blending.

Jutarnji List writes that most of the mentioned actors are actually very well known to the Croatian public, while the Barut brewing & blending brand hides a yeast biotechnology laboratory in Slovenia that deals with mixed fermentation in oak barrels. The result is, as they say, a fantastic beer.

Namely, Chef's Beer was created from the shared passion and unique cooperation of brewers, winemakers and chefs of top cuisine. A very special beer, brewed with maraschino raisins and aged for nine months in barrique barrels was created to provide a unique gastronomic experience as seen from the label itself and the look of the bottle. The label is very minimalist in design, and the glass bottle has an elegant look that we are used to seeing in the world of wine.

It is a complex beer with a malt body, relatively high alcohol content (9.3%), and it is characterized by perfectly balanced fruity, sweet and woody aromas. Interestingly, it already won the gold medal at the Europena beer challenge in London last month!

The beer is stylistically characterized as Old Ale / Flanders Brown. Yeasts of English strains were used in primary fermentation and Brettanomyces in secondary. The taste is dominated by caramel, molasses, raisins and dried maraschino grapes with a specific woody note. They recommend serving at a temperature of 10°C, and Chef´s Beer will be a great partner with mature and semi-ripened cheeses, more powerful meat dishes and, for example, chestnut and caramel desserts.

Beer lovers can now purchase Chef's Beer on the Zmajska pivovara webshop and the Varionica webshop. Chef's Beer can be ordered in the 0.375ml variant or 0.750 ml.

It is a product with a truly unique production process that is bound to be treasured by beer lovers all over the region.

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November the 12th, 2020 - The Varionica craft brewery has been operating successfully since 2014, when only the founders Matija Mrazek and Davor Simicic worked there, and today it boasts seven employees. The coronavirus pandemic hasn't been kind to any business, with lockdowns and strict measures hindering normality, but this Croatian brewery has fought on.

As Marta Duic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, over the last year, the Varionica craft brewery has opened their own production plant in Pisarovina with the help of European Union (EU) funds, thanks to which they plan to expand production and create even more products. In addition, this year, they launched six new beers and collaborated with chef Mato Jankovic on their Papak beer, as well as with the only Zagreb restaurant with a Michelin star - the much loved Noel.

Like many entrepreneurs, they didn't sit back and admit defeat during the unprecedented spring lockdown, but instead they launched their own webshop and expanded the network of caterers and hospitality facilities they work with.

''We started brewing beer as a hobby during college on a small home plant that we designed ourselves. After several years of experimenting, we decided to open one of the first craft breweries in Croatia and we rented a small plant in Medjimurje in order to do so. The idea arose out of love for a good beer that couldn't be bought here in Croatia at the time. Travelling around the world, we'd discovered that there are numerous styles of beer out there and that the story of beer is much more complex than the industrial lagers in our market. Since only some Belgian and German beers worth mentioning were available in our country, we decided to produce beer ourselves,'' Matija Mrazek of the Varionica craft brewery explained, warmly recalling their beginnings.

He and Davor Simicic then did everything themselves - from creating, bottling, selling and marketing on their own, and to this day they've designed 25 different beers. Most of the raw materials are imported because Croatia does not have what their production requires.

''We import our hops, malts and yeasts from the USA, Germany, Belgium and the Czech Republic. From Croatia we use Badass Barley malt from Nova Gradiska, peppers from Volim Ljuto and coffee from the Lively Roasters company. We'd like to cooperate with many more Croatian producers, but unfortunately they don't exist,'' explained Mrazek. For five years, they produced the Varionica craft brewery beer in a rented plant in Donji Vidovac, and at the end of last year they opened their own plant thanks to an EU grant worth an impressive 1.5 million euros. With that relocation, they quadrupled their production capacities and it currently stands at 40,000 litres per month.

''We started out with only one product on the market, pale ale, which is still our most popular beer today. Of the 25 styles made so far, 11 are currently on offer. Each beer is specific to its ingredients and the aromas they provide. We often use various additives like fruits and spices to show that beer can be a very exciting drink. We're constantly planning new beers and by the end of the year we'll definitely be rolling out at least one more. Since we're big lovers of food and drink, we're constantly thinking about new products, so we recently started a whiskey production project with our first craft distillery - Brigljevic,'' revealed Mrazek.

The last two of their presented products are closely related to gastronomy. In collaboration with the Zagreb restaurant Noel, they created a special sour beer with passion fruit, coriander and sea salt that goes well with oily fish and poultry, and after the lockdown, they decided to make Papak beer with Mato Jankovic, a very drinkable Czech pilsner. With each bottle sold, they donate 50 lipa for the education of young caterers at the Buda Foodie Foundation of chef Rudolf Stefan.

''Currently, our beers are available in Konzum, Kaufland, Spar, Vrutko, Prehrana, Trgocentar, ROTO and in special gastro and beer shops. We cooperate with many restaurants throughout Croatia, mostly in Zagreb. Since HoReCa is our biggest sales channel, we had huge losses during the lockdown, but we introduced home delivery and opened a webshop in record time, so that kept us alive,'' noted Mrazek. He claims that due to the pandemic, the Varionica craft brewery completely and quickly changed their business in order to adapt.

''In a short time, we launched our online sales and arranged listings in more than 150 retail locations across Croatia. We managed to launch some new products and recorded a significant increase in sales compared to last year. We're not exporting yet, but we're in negotiations with some European and distant countries, we're waiting for the situation with the coronavirus to stabilise a bit so that we can start working. In the future, we'll definitely focus on exporting and producing new styles. Our curiosity never gives us a break, you can expect a lot of styles of beer from us,'' concluded Matija Mrazek.

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As we enter this week’s edition of TCN’s craft beer series, we are happy to introduce you to another craft brewery making waves from Zagreb,Varionica.