Daria Palamarchuk updated the Beer Idiots on Varvar Brewing in Kyiv, Ukraine since we last spoke to its founder, and her father, Vasyl Mikulin at Leuven Innovation in 2019 (https://www.idiots.beer/from-ukraine-with-love/).
Palamarchuk was in Brussels, as was Mikulin, for Brussels Beer Project’s Wanderlust festival in September 2024.
The brewery started on 2015 after the family moved from Donetsk to Kyiv the previous year after Russian separatists took over the city, which is now under Russian occupation. Palamarchuk sees the brewery as doing its bit to keep the economy alive within the larger context of a war and the sacrifices being made by her fellow citizens.
Varvar, like many breweries started producing its beers at another brewery before installing their own equipment at a former lumber yard – lisopylka, which became the name of the brew-pub.
Over time they expanded to more modern equipment. The brewery came to run two brewhouses – at at full capacity can produce over 750,000 litres. But of course the ongoing war has interrupted production and supplies as efforts are directed to defending Ukraine. They have had to close down at times, most notably in 2022.
They have had support from overseas, for example when UK-based Euroboozer bought 45,000 pints from Varvar in 2022, with profits from the sale of the beer to consumers donated to humanitarian relief in Ukraine. The next year Euroboozer made a similar purchase, one of the supporting efforts to keep the brewery from collapsing.
While at Wanderlust the Idiots met Roman Gorin, a Ukrainian in Belgium, who gave us a taste of Brussels Beer Project’s version of Resist. BBP was among a number of breweries worldwide who participated in the Drinkers For Ukraine campaign in 2022-2023 (see video below). They brewed versions of Resist, the ‘anti-imperial’ stout, based on a recipe concocted by Ukrainian breweries.
Drinkers For Ukraine raised awareness and funds for humanitarian relief aid in Ukraine. The campaign was launched by Eoghan Walsh of Brussels Beer City and Switzerland-based Ukrainian Lana Svitankova.
