Celebrating the Bulgaria Liberation Day in a great company and with excellent draught beer.

Every year 3rd March is really special day for me and this is not only because it is the National Liberation day in Bulgaria, but also because I celebrate it with a group of friends from a Koledari group. (Koledari is a group of men who sing songs for prosperity and health on the Christmas eve and day)

We all gather, on the single most important day in Bulgaria, brew Kurban (a sheep soup, also made for health and prosperity) and generally have some great time together.

For the last five years or so we have another tradition there. We enjoy a couple of kegs, craft beer, which we buy from a brewery, whose owners are friends of mine. We tend to enjod different beers every year, but the draught setup is always the same.

First we start with the lighter beer… If we begin from the higher ABV one, we would not be able to reach the second keg that easily… plus, it is always better for your palate to start from the lighter alcohol and then continue up the ladder.

Here we have a California Lager beer, bamed La La Lager. It has some strong reference to the movie, that won oscars in the close past. But name is really not that important, rather than we seek the good flavor in our cups. And it is here. This lager is decently bombed with a good amount of fruitful hops. Not an IPA level hoppiness, but it is definitely very tasty and easy going.

In the company of some appetizers and BBQ cooking, we made it to the aecond keg - a Red IPA, named Alena. In Bulgarian this is the word for a hie of red color. A pretty obvious decision. And here I have to tell you that we made a great decision of leaving this beer as a second.

It was very intenssive in malt flavor and hoppy fruitful flavors. You can find a lot of citrus flavors here, which are balanced very well with the malt flavor. The beer was very thick and if we have started with this, the lager would feel so dull and watery for us.

I don’t say the lager was bad… it was great, to be honest, but the IPA was way better.

Every year at least two or three liters remain in the second keg when the party ends, but now all the beer was over by 7 PM. This made us start drinking Rakia… not complaining at all, but the beer was really great 😁. The only other thing that was over pretty soon was the day and the great time spent with my friends. I really enjoy gatherings like this and look forward to the next event. Hope it will be sooner.

So, that’s for now… see you really soon!
Cheers and bye!