Tasting the beer brewed at Luc’s Microbrewery for the first time engendered nothing short of incredulous outcries – “This is made in Bulgaria?” or something of the sort.

Yes.

The event was the Belgian culinary week at the Hilton Hotel  in April 2008, and one of the products featured was a beer surprisingly made in Bulgaria, in Tryavna, to be exact. Luc’s Microbrewery opened shop in July 2007, after three years of talks between then-mayor of Tryavna Stefan Danailov and the general investor on the Belgian side, Evgueni Mass.

It is named after Luc Vanbleu, a beer technology specialist and Mass’ business partner.

The brewery is a partnership between Tryavna municipality and Bulgarian-Belgian partnership Belinvest-Tryavna OOD, a project of Bel Alfa Forum. The total cost of the deal, in which Mass’ Belgian Bel Alfa Forum owns 66 per cent, is excpted to amount to about two million leva by the time everything is installed and completed, Mrs Nina Mass said to The Sofia Echo.

Tryavna gave the land for and constructed the facilities, while Belinvest funded the entire outfitting and equipping of the brewery and accompanying birraria, Stanimir Vlassov from Luc’s told The Sofia Echo.

Luc’s is equipped with CoEnCo brewing machinery.

Tryavna was chosen because of its ecologically clean location, Vlassov said, something that is vital to what is called “live beer”, meaning that it has no stabilising preservatives, and generally has noble yeasts left over from the brewing process.

The three types of beer brewed at Luc’s – a blonde (svetlo), amber (kehlibar) and dark (tumno), the latter being created specially for Tryavna and brewed with the local herb choubritsa, Mrs Mass said – are sold only at the beer pub that joins the brewing site. At the moment, it is not possible to take a tour of the actual brewery, though when at the birraria, visitors can observe the brewing process through glass windows that overlook the production area.

However, staff on site are always willing to explain the brewing process and talk about the beers, Vlassov said. The four brewers themselves (Bulgarians) have completed applicable training programmes in Belgium, and, as such, bring a new level of finesse and knowledge to the brewing craft in Bulgaria.

The goal of Luc’s Microbrewery – the first microbrewery in Bulgaria, so you know – is not to produce thousands of bottles for mass consumption, but to “show beer from a different vantage point”, Vlassov said, and to encourage people to appreciate a higher culture in beer. He foresees the creation of other microbreweries in Bulgaria’s future, once people become more accustomed to good beer.

The key to Luc’s good beer, he said, is quality raw ingredients (obtained from a reputable Belgian company) and adherence to proven traditional recipes from Belgian breweries. At the Tryavna site, it takes 14 days from start to ready-for-drinking. In eight hours of operation, the brewery produces 250 litres of beer, with a capacity of 500 litres in eight hours, Mrs Mass said, all of which undergo high (aka, top) fermentation. For the lighter beers, alcohol is at five to six per cent, while for the dark (officially named Trevnensko), it is at about 6.5 per cent.

In the future, Luc’s Microbrewery is thinking to create brews along the lines of Belgium’s krieks and framboise lambics, with flavours of cherries, strawberries, plums or raspberries.