Craft beer in Croatia: Nova Runda

Published: March 27, 2025

Tags: brewery visits | Croatia | Nova Runda

The last stop on our brewery tour in and around Zagreb in 2024 was to the wonderful Nova Runda craft brewery, based in Zabok. Nova Runda is in fact one of the pioneers of the modern craft beer in Croatia – the founders started with home-brewing more than 15 years ago, when artisan brewing was a very new thing in Croatia, and since then they’ve been amongst the power figures of the craft beer revolution of the country, developing the beer scene and educating people to drink new types of beers.

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The story of Nova Runda started with home-brewing

The beginning of the story of Nova Runda dates back to 2009, when two friends, Marko Filipin and Miroslav Šuvak, took their first steps in home-brewing. They started with collecting info about brewing from a home-brewing portal and literature, and then brewed their first beer. And then they realized that home-brewing might just be the best hobby in the whole world, and there was no turning back. They studied production methods, brewing techniques, beer styles, and everything brewing brewing related, and kept brewing new small batches. At the same time, the Croatian home-brewing community was slowly growing, and there were live gatherings to share knowledge and to taste and comment the beers.

After 3 years of small-scale home-brewing, it was time to start taking the next steps. In December 2012 Marko and Miro got the idea of starting their own brewery. Marko devoted himself to improving beer production techniques, and Miro focused on the business side and the bureaucracy related to opening a brewery. In June 2013, Nova Runda company was registered, and later that year Miro left his previous job to fully focus on founding a brewery and training people on artisan brewing and beer styles. The business plan for the craft brewery was written, but there were challenges on getting green light for the financial part, and the plan to set up a new facility was unfortunately turned down in the ministry. That led to the decision to start brewing in an existing microbrewery, and in 2014 Nova Runda started brewing operations as a gipsy brewery.

The first public promotion of Nova Runda took place one year after the company’s registration, in June 2014. The first beer, Nova Runda APA, was introduced to the public. Month by month the sales and the production amounts started to grow, but it was not fully a jolly ride – brewing in the premises of another brewery meant that they couldn’t be present all the time and supervise and control the production all the time. In February 2015 Nova Runda moved to another brewery, a facility that had been closed for a long time. Marko and Miro leased the brewery, and were able to set up the production the way they wanted, and to take control of every step of the beer production. 2015 was a year of growth and new openings. In Feb 2016 the first Nova Runda IPA, called C4 was released, and this hoppy beast shook up the Croatian craft scene.

After 5 years of brewing in rented facilities, it was time to finally turn the plans of building an own brewery into reality. Thorough planning and investment studies were needed, as well as fundraising and taking a loan, before turning an old metal production hall in Zabok into a brewery. The building project was successfully completed during the summer of 2019, and by the end of August 2019 Nova Runda was producing their first beer in their own facility.

The hop-heads of the craft beer market of Croatia

Nova Runda brewery in Zabok was equipped with a brewhouse and tanks built by a domestic stainless steel equipment manufacturer Letina. There is in total 30 000 liters of fermenting capacity at the moment, and most of the time it’s fully utilized. Nova Runda packs majority of their beers in kegs, but there is also a canning line, that was acquired to be a able to sell beers more widely, and also export them abroad. The crew emphasizes, that craft beer has to be served and stored properly – serving beer from clean drafts is the best way, and if sold in cans, maintaining the cold chain is important. That is why you can’t find Nova Runda beers in cans from the shelves of grocery stores, but only from bottle shops and fridges of craft beer pubs.

From the beginning Nova Runda has brewed beers that bring something new to the Croatian beer market, and they keep launching beers that are more hoppy and more complex than most of the artisan beers on the market. The brewery focuses on quality and consistency, and many of the beers from the early years are still in production, like the iconic Nova Runda APA and the C4 IPA.

All in all Nova Runda has launched more than 200 different craft beers during the years – the brewery is most famous for their delicious and daring IPAs, APAs and Sours, but should you want to drink something else, let’s say a Pilsner, a Fruited Sour or a BA Imperial Stout, they’ve got you covered!

Tasting Nova Runda Craft Beers

Below you can see four great Nova Runda craft beers in different styles; APA and C4 from the core series and two special beers – jump from the pictures or links to beer cards with more information about each beer and our tasting notes. In addition to these, we liked a lot for example Zaboky 12 Ležak Pilsner, Top Manager NEPA and BA Prototype 2023: Martinique Blend Russian Imperial Stout.

Nova Runda APA is a fruity, highly drinkable American Pale Ale

C4 is a balanced, hoppy American IPA

High Voltage is a nicely bitter, generously hopped Mountain IPA

BA Prototype 2023: Kentucky Blend is a sweet, delicious blended Russian Imperial Stout

The best place to taste the Nova Runda craft beers super fresh is of course their brewery taproom, only a short train ride from Zagreb (open on Fridays). The taproom, located right next to the production area, has a great atmosphere and a wonderful beer selection, and there is a large record collection too, we even managed to find Finnish music during our visit! Nova Runda also organizes festivals and other events, like the annual Beer Bash anniversary party in summer and the annual C4 day in April!.