Croatia: New craft brewery to open in Osijek in December

Croatia's craft beer revolution continues, now expanding in Slavonia, Total Croatia News reported on November 25.

In early December, the first craft brewery in Osijek, Black Hat, will start its production at the premises of the Bios business incubator in Osijek. The project has been launched by Igor Ilić, a graduate of electrical engineering, and Danijel Božurić, an owner of a private company, reports Glas Slavonije.

These beer lovers say that the idea for launching a craft brewery occurred a year ago when they decided to turn their hobby into a business. One of the reasons was the fact that in recent years in Croatia there has been a growing interest in craft beers. Also, Daniel from an early age had a vision of opening his own private brewery.

The opening ceremony of the Black Hat brewery is planned for 9 December, when the first batch of their beer will come on the market. At first, the production capacity will be 4,000 litres of beer per month, with plans to reach a capacity of at least 8,000 litres a month in the near future.

"The first beer that we will produce is Blond Ale, which is most similar to the beers that people are used to in this area. It is a light beer of golden colour, with a slight aroma of hops. All our beers will consist of barley malt, water, hops and yeast, and, depending on the style of beer, there will also be some herbs added. We are planning to make smaller batches of beer that we will, depending on the interest of the buyers, later start producing in larger quantities,” Igor and Danijel say.

The company owners plan to distribute their beers first to restaurants in the area of Osijek and the entire Slavonia and Baranja.

In the last year, about a dozen craft breweries have been opened in Croatia.

25 November, 2015