Craft beer in Croatia:
Varionica microbrewery
Craft beer in Croatia: Varionica
It’s about a time to publish a post series about the breweries that we had the pleasure to visit along our wonderful craft beer tour in Croatia and Slovenia in 2024! These beautiful, neighboring countries in the Balkans lure in a huge amount of visitors especially during the summer months, and both are wonderful destinations also for beer travelers. In this first post of the series we introduce Varionica microbrewery from Pisarovina in Croatia, and in the following posts we will share more brewery introductions, discuss about the craft beer culture in Croatia and Slovenia and write about beer tourism too!
Read also: Craft beer in Croatia: Introduction
Varionica has been brewing quality craft beers since 2014
So, let’s start from Pisarovina, a small town roughly 30 km south from Zagreb, where we got to meet with Davor and Marko, and interview them about the Varionica brewery, and craft beer culture in Croatia in general. Varionica was founded by Matija Mrazek and Davor Simičić in 2014, when the craft beer movement had just recently reached Croatia. The story has longer roots though; before commercial brewing Matija and Davor were passionate home-brewers and beer lovers, making artisan beers in different styles with small equipment. Their beers turned out to be so good, that a restaurant chain owner wanted to order their beer for his pizzerias. With this request, it was time to expand from running a home brewery to brewing in commercial sale.
The request to brew for the restaurant chain was the moment when the Matija and Davor decided to be part of the Croatian craft beer revolution, and to turn brewing into a business. For the first five years, Varionica operated as a gypsy brewery, meaning that the crew brewed their beers in premises of other breweries. In 2019, after getting an EU grant for the construction project, it was time to build their own, modern production facility in Pisarovina. And in 2024 Varionica celebrated their 10th anniversary, congratulations!
“Today we are happy that we managed to arouse people’s curiosity and that we influence the increasing number of craft beer lovers on a daily basis. We are proud because we became part of a story that managed to bring beer back to the gastronomic map of Croatia.”
Innovative beers from quality raw materials
The key values of Varionica are innovation, creativity and quality without compromise. Creating a new beer begins with getting an idea of a specific style and the desired characteristics of the beer. The raw materials and brewing techniques required to achieve the desired result are chosen based on the experience that the brewing crew has gained from making hundreds of batches of craft beers in different styles. Using only quality ingredients plays an important role in brewing, and the standards are kept high all the way to packaging, delivering and marketing the final product.
Varionica brews with a 20 hl brewhouse made by Croatian stainless steel manufacturer Letina, and the beers are fermented and matured in 9 fermenting tanks. The capacity of the brewery is around 40 000 liters per month, or a million beer bottles a year, but the actual production volume varies based on the demand. Roughly half of the beer produced is packed in kegs and the rest in bottles, and sold all over Croatia both in pubs and restaurants and in supermarkets. Varionica also has international sales to some other European countries and in the future possibly also to Asia, but the main market is in Croatia.
Tasting Varionica craft beers
Varionica is an awarded microbrewery that has a solid selection of core beers. They don’t constantly launch new beers, but there is always ideas about something new and interesting. Varionica core series includes delicious classics from refreshing Lager beers to hop-forwarded Pale Ales and dark Stouts. In addition, there are some seasonal and specialty beers, as well as collaboration beers and special releases with other breweries and restaurants or events for example.
Below you can see four true-to-style Varionica beers that we absolutely loved – jump from the pictures or links to beer cards with more information about each beer and our tasting notes. In addition to these four, we liked a lot for example Pop!Lager, an every-day, all-day Helles Lager and Chef’s Beer, an artistic hybrid between Old Ale and Flanders Brown, brewed in collaboration with Bibich Wine Croatia, Barut Brewing and Blending, Mate Janković and Zmajska pivovara.
Pale Ale is a classic launched already in 2015
Neon Stout is a full and roasted Oatmeal Stout
Varionica does not have its own taproom restaurant or a tasting room in the brewery, but their beers are available in numerous pubs in Zagreb and elsewhere in Croatia and also sold in bottle shops and many grocery stores around the country.
About Craft Beer Nomads
Craft Beer Nomads is a blog about artisan beer, microbreweries and craft beer culture in Europe and beyond. The blog is written by FinnsAway, a nomad couple who has been on the road since 2017, and enjoys tasting new craft beers all around the world.
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