With the craft beer craze continuing to take the country by storm, have you ever wondered about Zagreb’s beer brewing past?
As Darko Bicak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 29th of June, 2018, this is a project that intends to place emphasis on Zagreb’s rich beer brewing past.
Zagreb Brewery (Zagrebačka pivovara) presented a new beer oriented tourist attraction which, inspired by other cities famed for their beer (Dublin-Guinness, Amsterdam-Heineken, Munich-Paulaner) to enrich the tourist offer of the capital.
Namely, K Pivovara (Pivana) and Grif Mikropivovara (Micro brewery), have opened their doors in cooperation with the Beer Museum through a unique blend of culture, industrial and craft secrets, as well as through gastronomy. Of course, the aforementioned Zagreb breweries can’t yet be compared remotely to the above mentioned towns and breweries such as Munich, but they are attractions already known to both residents and to tourists. The novelty is that from now on, Grif, which has only been in business for less than one year, is set to open their doors for organised visits.
Lejla Novalija, brewery biotechnologist at Zagreb’s brewery acquaints visitors with the fact that even the famous Ožujsko beer found its place in Zagreb, as well as with the sacred details of beer as the primary drink of numerous European monasteries, many of which still keep their craft secrets just that to this very day, even in the case of those which have become globally recognised brands.
Mirko Banić Ištuk is the master brewer and chief technologist of the mini Grif brewery and is one of a total of four employees. Banić Ištuk is one of Croatia’s most famous brewers, and perhaps the most well known to true beer lovers as one of the masters behind the extremely popular Velebit beer (Velebitsko pivo), made by the Ličanka brewery, he also worked at the Križevci brewery.
Grif is a classic micro brewery with an annual capacity of 5,000 hectolitres of beer, but in practice much smaller quantities of beer are being produced. Most of the beer, which comes from the brewery exclusively in barrels, is sold there, but can also be tasted in numerous breweries across Croatia.
The micro brewery offers two standard beers (pilsner and IPA, and it’s interesting to note that their third-round assortment brews seasonal beer, which is, of course, always different. In this way, beer lovers are offered the classic winter beer Vanilla Porter in the winter, and St. Patrick’s Day is marked with Irish Red Ale. Today, the classic German Hefe-Weißbier, wheat beer, is on offer.
Although the Grif micro brewery can be found next to Zagreb brewery on Ilica, director Tina Puhalo Grladinović pointed out that Grif is owned by K pivovara, which was founded as the daughter company of Zagreb brewery.
“Grif micro brewery is completely independent in its decision making and has a special management, and our master brewer Mirko Banić Ištuk’s hands aren’t tied, so he creates the beer the way he thinks it needs to be,” stated Tina Puhalo Grladinović.
Click here for the original article by Darko Bicak for Poslovni Dnevnik
