Romanian craft beer
Craft Beer in Romania
Romania has a beer tradition starting from the 19th century, when beer was often used to be eaten in the —berării——brewpubs—with mititei—a traditional Romanian meal. Some of the oldest breweries in Romania are still running, like Timișoreana from Timisoara, Ursus from Cluj-Napoca or Ciucas from Brasov.
Craft beer didn't start until mid 2010's, with brands like Zăganu, Bereta, Hop Hoolingans or Ground Zero.
Romanian beer brands
Hop Hooligans
Hop Hooligans is a Romanian brewery founded in 2016 in Jilava by Cristian Dinu and Mircea Georgescu. They first partnered with Petre Ion, owner of one of Romania's first craft beer bars, Beer o'clock, but sadly Peter died in 2017 in a car accident.
They are considered one of the pioneers of craft beer in Romania, and are consistently ranked among the Romanian top 10 in Ratebeer. They specialize in IPA's, but also experiment a lot with styles, being the first brewery to introduce sours or barleywines in the Romanian market. They are also the first Romanian brewers to start canning beers, and since 2019, they organize the craft beer festival Haze, in collaboration with Bereta.
Go to Hop Hooligans
Bereta
Bereta Brewing is a brewery founded in 2016 in Giarmata, Romania by Adrian Biebel and Silviu Burtă. Both had previous experience as home brewers, and in 2016 they began producing as gypsy brewers at the Ground Zero facility in Bucharest. They have also made collaborations with other pioneering brewers of the Romanian craft scene such as Wicked Barrel and Hop Hooligans. Their beers are characterized by the generous use of hops, as for example in the Juicebag, awarded as the best Romanian beer of 2016 by Ratebeer.
Already in 2018 they stopped being nomads by moving to their own brewery in Giamata. They are also co-organizers of Romania's first craft beer festival, the Haze Fest, and they also have a program to help budding homebrewers, the Bereta Brewing Community.
Go to Bereta