Laško Dark

We’re well into the midst of the UK holiday season now (to our American friends, this means the time of year when us Brits escape the rain, not open presents). As such, no self-respecting beer website would be without a post regarding a strangely-titled Eurolager that whilst we’d never consider buying over here, put us in shorts and weather over 15°C and all of a sudden actually these foreigner types can kind of brew certain types of beer reasonably well although there is a touch of corn in there. Well – here’s ours!

Pivovarna Laško are the largest brewer in Slovenia – as we’re all aware, I’m sure – and were founded in 1825 by a gingerbread man* called Franz Geyer. Over the years they became increasingly popular all over the northern Balkans, and when Yugoslavia was integrated, they found a more concentrated following. Becoming something of a mini In-Bev, Laško absorbed their nearest rivals Pivovarna Union and went from strength to strength.

Apparently in around the 1950’s they were in the top six Yugoslav breweries in terms of sales – steadily increasing output until 1991. At this point, Slovenia declared independence and was caught up in the conflict that plagued the area for much of the next decade. Not surprisingly, sales in the other ex-Yugoslav states plummeted, but slowly Laško beer rebounded and drinkers again took up the brand, irrespective of their particular fledgling national identity in the new Balkan arena.

And I only bought a Laško Dark because it had a goat on it. Proving that their beers have spread outwards from Slovenia, it was readily available in Croatia where I happened to holiday recently – alongside the punctuation-heavy local lagers such as Ožujsko and Karlovačko. Laško Temno (Dark) is a 5.9% dunkel, that pours very temno, and has a decent roasty edge to it. Quite bready, with a sweet finish, it’s not awesome, but is surprisingly nice – however, in the Croatian sunshine, pretty much everything is…

Interestingly, the following is a direct quote from the Pivovarna Laško website – and is something I think we can all agree on…“Dark beer drinkers are cosmopolitan in outlook, sybaritic by nature and are true connoisseurs of taste.”

* A man that made gingerbread