Craft beer in Croatia: Zmajska Pivovara

Published: February 28, 2025

Craft beer in Croatia brewery introduction series continues with a post about Zmajska Pivovara, the first new wave artisan brewery of the country. Zmajska was founded in 2013, when the craft beer revolution of Croatia had just started, and unlike other microbreweries that were founded around the same time, Zmajska built their own brewery rightaway instead of starting as a gypsy brewery. Zmajska Pivovara started their production in small premises in Zagreb city center, and released their first beers in 2014. We had a pleasure to meet with Nenad, the head brewer of Zmajska, and had a great chat about the brewery and craft beer in Croatia in general.

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From home brewing to building a modern craft brewery

Zmajska Pivovara, that translates to Dragon Brewery, was born our of passion towards craft beer and intense home-brewing hobby. As the craft beer boom hit Croatia in 2013, it was time to start brewing beer in a bit bigger scale and selling it to others. At that time, the founders and brewers of Zmajska, together with the teams of Varionica and Nova Runda breweries, also worked very hard to educate people about different beers and the art of brewing. The first beers that Zmajska launched in 2014, were a Pale Ale and a Porter, both very different from the bulk lagers that dominate the market.

After a couple of years of brewing with small equipment, the demand of the beer had grown so much that it was time to think about expansion. The current, modern Zmajska brewery and adjacent taproom were built, with the help of an EU grant, in Jankomir in the western part of Zagreb. Zmajska has a similar, though a bit more manual, 2000-liter Letina brewhouse than Varionica. Zmajska crew usually brews two batches in a row, and the beers are fermented and matured in 40 hl and 80 hl vessels. For special beers and gypsy breweries there are also smaller, 20 hl vessels. The annual production amount is roughly 5000-6000 hl, which makes Zmajska a relatively big microbrewery in Croatian scale.

With love by a team of creative craft beer enthusiasts

Zmajska team cherishes creativity and innovativeness in brewing, and keeps constantly launching new artisan beers in different styles. Quality ingredients are of course important part of the brewing process – majority of the malts are ordered from Germany, and most of the hops come from Yakima.

“We are thrilled to be able to – both through classic and specialty beer styles – offer you the kind of beers we ourselves love to drink.”

The main market of Zmajska is domestic, and majority of the beer is sold in pubs, restaurants, bottle shops and grocery stores in Croatia. From the beginning the crew has focused on offering beers, and beer related education, to local population, but of course also tourists visiting Croatia have found Zmajska’s beers.

If you are visiting Zagreb in summer, check out the dates of the annual Zmajevo festival! This craft beer and music event, organized by Zmajska in their brewery premises, gathers together a bunch of craft beer enthusiasts, and there are visiting breweries from Croatia and abroad!

Tasting Zmajska Pivovara craft beers

Zmajska brews quality craft beers in both classic and modern styles. The core range of the brewery includes five classics that are available year-around; Pils Craft Lager, American Pale Ale, Therapy Session IPA, Pozoj IPA and American Porter.

When it comes to seasonal beers and specials, Zmajska has a beer series called Concoction, that includes seasonal releases like light summer beers and specials like fruity Sour beers and hoppy IPAs. The brewery has a small barrel program too, with barrel-aged Wild Beers and Imperial Stouts. Zmajska also does collaboration beers with other Croatian and international breweries.

For the 10th anniversary of the brewery the crew aged an Imperial Stout in barrels that had been previously used to age their own whiskey called the Tale of the Dragon’s Tail. In early March 2025 the brewery celebrates their 12th anniversary – as the birthday is on 8th March, they always make an 8,3 ABV anniversary beer, like in 2024 Gargoyle Gala Double IPA. Furthermore, Zmajska has a series of hard seltzers, called GRIN, the first hard seltzer produced in Croatia. The seltzers come in three flavors so far (raspberry, red grapefruit, lime), are low in alcohol and calories, have no allergens and only contain natural aromas.

Below you can see four delicious Zmajska beers in different styles – two from the core series and two special releases from 2024. 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 loved for example Sun Scream Session NEIPA, released for the 2024 Zmajevo Festival, and Palooza Italian Pilsner, a collaboration brew with the Italian LZO birrificio brewery.

Pils is a clean and crispy core series Pilsner

Pozoj is a delicious, fruity core series West Coast IPA

Gargoyle Gala is a strong, heavily hopped Double IPA

Balaur is a sweet, strong BA Russian Imperial Stout

The best place to taste Zmajska craft beers super fresh is of course the taproom next to the brewery, where you can taste beers from eight taps, or buy them in cans and bottles.