Craft beer weekend. Bulgarian micro breweries and their best beers.

We spent the weekend visiting my wife’s parents in a city nearby the Rhodope mountain. We don’t come here very often, but when we find ourselves here, I have a special place that I really love visiting. It’s a very nice beer bar, which is relatively small but there are always a lot of different beers to pick, both by Bulgarian breweries and abroad ones.

Apart from bottled ones there are 4 taps that serve mostly beers by the Rhombus brewery. It’s relatively close here, maybe 30-40 kilometers away, so deliveries are easy. Other Bulgarian breweries are represented mainly by bottled beers.

I always find myself in a big dilemma whether to go with a nice beer that I liked a lot in the past, or to try something different and new. This time I decided to try an IPA from “Trima & Dvama” brewery, located in Sliven.

My wife decided to go with a beer from the “Rhombus” brewery, which is a barrel aged Imperial stout, with the title The Gambit, named after the famous Netflix series.

My wife’s sister insisted that I should choose a beer for her and I decided that she would enjoy a lot another IPA but from a brewery in Lovech, with the name Meltum. The beer’s name is Hopsperiment.

I must say that from the three beers, The Gambit was the best one. Very thick, creamy texture and with a lot of character from the barrel maturation. From the three beers it’s the heaviest one with 10% of alcohol.

The “Trima & Dvama” IPA was a bit old in my opinion and the hops were faded a bit. Yet with its 7% alcohol it was still a nice pick.

The Hopsperiment was fresher than the other IPA and it’s flavors were more fruitful and intensive. Definitely wins the battle of the IPAs now.

Finally, I wanted to finish with something tapped. Another IPA, but from the Rhombus brewery.

This was maybe the best pick, from one hand that it was tapped beer, and on the other hand it was fresh brewed. The Aloha IPA is maybe the most iconic IPA from the Rhombus brewery and was definitely the best finish of today’s visit in the beer bar.

Cheers and have a nice Sunday!