Lagerboy Speaks – Zagorka Special

Hmmm…a European lager with a green and white label in a large green bottle. Lagerboy was just about to walk past the lonely bottle of Heineken on the shelf (there’s a song in there somewhere) when he suddenly noticed a letter Z in the name. Zagorka Special is apparently one of the most popular brands of lager in Bulgaria. It’s a 5%abv beer produced in Stara Zagora, which is in the south of the country 150 miles from Sofia and known for it’s Lime trees.

On further exploration (i.e. looking up Wikipedia – and not just for the type of fruit tree found in the general area) we find the resemblance to Heineken might not be a co-incidence. The Zagorka Brewery are owned by the Dutch behemoths since they were bought out in the mid-1990’s. They were founded back in 1884 by a couple of Czechs, brothers Bohdan and Jiří Prošek – and now have four brands of their own – Zagorka Special (5% lager) Zagorka Gold (another 5% lager), Ariana (4.5% pale lager), and Stolichno (6.5% bock). Only the first of these was for sale in Lagerboy’s local bottle shop, so into the basket it went.

Tastewise – and stop me if you’ve heard this before – it’s a slightly sharp, mild-ish lager with some gassy carbonation. A bit soapy and green, it’s not exactly barnstorming, but sampled with a particularly nice Afghan curry from my local over the road it went down pretty well. On it’s own, it just tastes of Heineken. But it does have a different label.

Zagorka Brewery