Estonian craft beer
Craft Beer in Estonia
Estonia has a long tradition of brewing, as beer was preferred to water before the advent of sanitation systems. Even as today it remains some farm brewing tradition especially in the island of Saarema, with local styles like Koduõlu or Taluõlu, that could be related to modern sour/wild ales.
Homebrewing heavily decreased with the arrival of industrial beer, with the establishment of the famous A. Le Coq brewery, when the market became predominantly flooded with pilsner style lagers.
The craft beer movement didn't arrive to Estonia until the early 2010's with the arrival of Põhjala—the first craft brewery to put Estonia in the map, especially with their reinterpretation of Baltic Porter—and recently many others breweries are emerging in the scene, like Pühaste, Lehe, Tanker or Õllenaut.
Estonian beer brands
Pühaste
Pühaste is an Estonian brewery founded in 2016 by Eero Mander, a former homebrewer, and co-founders Üllar Kaljurand and Lauri Eidermann. Before that, Eero parntered with another Estonian breweries as Põhjala and then Lehe, Õllenaut and Tanker, producing a series of gypsy brews in order to fund his brewery.
The name Pühaste means holy in Estonian, and it´s the name of the village where Eero started brewing, fifty km away from their current location in Tartu, a town famous for being home of the historical Le Coq brewery.
Go to Pühaste