Rise of beer making in Ruše

The story of the Lobik Brewery began when a bunch of kids aged between 15 and 17 came from the rowing training sessions as thirsty as a sponge but couldn’t buy nor were they allowed to buy beer. That is why the eager foursome decided they would make beer on their own. After eight years of studying, working hard and experimenting, they were finally pleased with the outcome and keen to kick-start their brewing career. So in 2016 they opened their very first brewery. After only two years in the business, the brewery was recognised as the best craft brewery in the region.  

The enterprise Lobik Brewery and its project Rise of beer making in Ruše, one in a series of many projects supported under the community-led local development (CLLD) approach, is a success story. The CLLD builds on the principle of bottom-up approach to local development which brings local people together in so-called local action groups (LAG) through which they actively participate in decision-making regarding the priorities and development goals of their area. One of the 37 LAGs set up in Slovenia is LAG Drava which announced an invitation to submit funding proposals. The Lobik Brewery was successful and received EU funding to upgrade their craft brewing business.

The main cost items in the scope of the project were new fermentation vessels, upgrade of the cooling system and creation of two jobs. The new brewing equipment helped increase beer production capacity by 110%. Before applying for EU funding, the Lobiks couldn’t produce large quantities of beer as stage two of the brewing process, i.e. fermentation, had limited capacities due to insufficient equipment. That is why the capacities of the first and the third stage of production, boiling and packaging respectively, remained underutilised.

 ‘’EU funding was a massive financial injection our enterprise really needed to increase production capacity and expand our business. We were able to double production volume and successfully break into new EU beer markets with larger volumes of beer produced’’, explained Tadeja from the Lobik Brewery.   

What does Lobik actually mean? To find out, check their website