Slovenian supermarket Mercator team and the Beer Bulli van visits the home of Hogstar lager
The name and reputation of Hogs Back’s award-winning lager, Hogstar, continues to grow both at home and across the world as we received a visit from a very special 1961 Volkswagen Van which had come all the way from Slovenia!
Mercator is Slovenia's biggest retailer, having shopping centres in Slovenia, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Earlier in the year the supermarket chain created a shortlist of 70 British Beers to stock in their stores and then asked their customers to choose their favourite 4 which they would continue to stock. We were delighted that our Hogstar craft lager was chosen from this selection.
The van was being driven by Matej Špehar who is the founder of the ‘Beer Bulli’ project which is working in collaboration with Mercator and the Department for International Trade’s Craft is GREAT initiative to both promote Slovenia’s growing craft beer market and to visit the breweries of their favourite British Breweries.
The Beer Bulli van, which doubles up as a mobile bar serving a selection of Slovenian craft beers, popped by at the brewery on Saturday to meet some of the team and to talk to visitors about the project and encourage them to try one or two of their beers. Their selection included a beer from the Loo-Blah-Nah brewery, named to help tourists with the pronunciation of the Slovenian capital, Ljubliana and Maximus Imperial Vizir, a 9% IPA which brewery visitors thought was very tasty! It was the van’s final stop on their UK tour after visiting Bristol, Cambridge, Suffolk and London and now they are winding their way back through Europe to Ljubljana via stops in Belgium and Munich. You can keep an eye on their progress on the Beer Bulli Twitter and Instagram pages and take a look at how they restored the van on their Youtube Channel.
Since the end of last year, Hogs Back Brewery has exported beer to Finland, France, Trinidad & Tobago, Italy, the Republic of Ireland and Singapore so we’re really putting Tongham on the map! Keep your eyes peeled if you’re off on holiday to any of these places and see if you can pick up a Hogstar in a Mercator store if you’re heading to the Balkans.
The van was being driven by Matej Špehar who is the founder of the ‘Beer Bulli’ project which is working in collaboration with Mercator and the Department for International Trade’s Craft is GREAT initiative to both promote Slovenia’s growing craft beer market and to visit the breweries of their favourite British Breweries.
The Beer Bulli van, which doubles up as a mobile bar serving a selection of Slovenian craft beers, popped by at the brewery on Saturday to meet some of the team and to talk to visitors about the project and encourage them to try one or two of their beers. Their selection included a beer from the Loo-Blah-Nah brewery, named to help tourists with the pronunciation of the Slovenian capital, Ljubliana and Maximus Imperial Vizir, a 9% IPA which brewery visitors thought was very tasty! It was the van’s final stop on their UK tour after visiting Bristol, Cambridge, Suffolk and London and now they are winding their way back through Europe to Ljubljana via stops in Belgium and Munich. You can keep an eye on their progress on the Beer Bulli Twitter and Instagram pages and take a look at how they restored the van on their Youtube Channel.
Since the end of last year, Hogs Back Brewery has exported beer to Finland, France, Trinidad & Tobago, Italy, the Republic of Ireland and Singapore so we’re really putting Tongham on the map! Keep your eyes peeled if you’re off on holiday to any of these places and see if you can pick up a Hogstar in a Mercator store if you’re heading to the Balkans.