The story of Nova Runda (New Round)

Who is behind Nova runda?

Marko Filipin finished faculty of mathematics and he currently works in a bank, but every free moment, during last 5 years, he used for homebrewing. He is the head brewer of Nova runda, and there's no an obstacle which will stop him to use every ingredient possible to make quality beer. Miroslav Šuvak finished faculty of economics, and he recently quit his job so he can 100% focus all of his efforts to establishing their dream - Brewing a craft beer in Croatia. He worked as an IT Specialist at his previous company. He enjoys visiting beer festivals where he can try new beers. America will be his next beer travelling adventure, but that will have to wait - Brewery first, everything else - second :). Marko and Miroslav are friends since childhood, and that's also one of the reasons why they are so devoted to accomplishing their goal, they know each of theirs advantages and disadvantages.

Rewards - Perks

Rewards start from stickers, beer mats, and T-shirts with our brewery logo, and will be topped off with some specials - such as a beer paddle for the beer flight. The most valued reward, and probably the coolest one is -> a chance to name our beers!! A few of you will have a chance to brand our beers - one beer which will be one time brewed only, and one which will be season brewed!!! 

To take full advantage of some of the rewards, you will have to be in Croatia - our ultimate backers will enjoy brewing with us in the brewery! You will have your dreams come true and become an assistant brewer!  As assistant brewer, you will help our head brewer with everything from milling the grain to pitching the yeast!! You will see what craft brewing looks like, from the beginning to the end!!

Great wall of Founders

Maybe it's not tangible or as big as the Great wall of China, but in the digital world, it's the wall of great importance!! Your brick helped build that wall, and helped us achieve our dream. This part of our web site will never go off!!! We will always be proud of you.

Custom made wallpaper

The man responsible for our logo - our designer - will make you a beautiful wallpaper with our logo on it. As a proud backer, your name, or whatever else you choose, will be written on that wallpaper! 

Sticker

Take it off, and put it wherever you want - let it be a reminder for you and all of your friends how you backed a noble cause - the Croatian craft beer revolution!!!!

Beer Mat

It has our logo printed on both sides making it a great place to put your favourite beverage.

Voucher

Come on, admit it. You always wanted to visit Croatia! Now you have the most important reason - to try our beers in pubs all over the Croatian capital, Zagreb. With this voucher, you have the right to order 1 pint of our beer for free, so come on, hop on a plain and come to Zagreb, we are waiting for you!!!!

T-shirt

A colored T-shirt in all sizes. Oh, did we mention they have our logo in the front and the back!!

Tote bag

Pint

Our pride - the Holy pint!! It doesn't matter which beer style you are pouring into it, because our logo will be visible even if it's the darkest Stout or if it's the lightest Helles! Cheers!!!!

Beer paddle

Paddle? For what? Well for the beer flight, of course :) 

Every paddle is unique because it's hand crafted by one small craft shop near the city of Varaždin. You'll have an engraved logo of Nova runda craft brewery on it, and there will be holes for 3 different beer samplers to put on it!!!! Or you can simply put it on your wall as a souvenir.

The Impact

The Croatian beer market is overpopulated with classic commercial euro lagers, and it's dominated by 3 biggest breweries. Until recently, only lager type beers were being produced in Croatia. We want to start something that will change and disrupt our boring beer market! Help us bring our beloved craft beer to the Croatian market and help us pursue our homebrewing passion. The Croatian market deserves this, as well as Croatian consumers.

We love the craft beer movement, and the idea behind it because it's focused on 3 things:

• Beer
  
• Individual (Brewer)
  
• People
  

These 3 things create an infinite loop which can only be improved over time. We are passionate about our beers, and we want to make them better with every new batch.

We want to brew ales - our biggest idols are craft breweries from USA, UK and Ireland, but we also love British brewers of cask ales. We are thrilled by the fact that in the USA are more then 2700 breweries and that they can coexist by brewing beer out of passion and love. Last year when we visited UK, we were surprised by the amount of beers offered in pubs and with the overall beer appreciation. We want something similar here in Croatia. So, our plan is quite simple - we are going to produce only kegged beers, un-pasteurized and un-filtered, so our consumers can enjoy beer when it's fresh - to feel all hoppy aromas and malt characteristics. We will use as many Croatian ingredients as we can, but we will also import hops. Aromas given by American hops should be noticed when the beer is being poured on tap. Our first beer will be Nova runda APA (American pale ale), but after that, we are planing to brew IPA, Porter and Brown ale. With this standard styles, we are preparing some surprises as well :). At some point, we would like to offer cask ales on a regular basis, but that moment will have to wait - for now! 

First, we were planing to buy a new brewery for us, and last year we finished our business plan for it.  We knew we can only count on ourselves, but a new opportunity knocked at our doors. One brewery offered their existing facility in which we will brew our beers - allowing us to slowly start with our business of raising beer awareness in Croatia - so we became the first Croatian contract brewers!!!

Our friends!!!!

All Croatian digital community and Internet portals were great support to us, as well as American and UK beer bloggers which posts were battery charges during our planning of this campaign. Rory, Nate, Mark, Justin, Andy, Tim, Pete, Reuben, Melissa and others - thanks!!!!!! We have to mention great community which respects great beer - Campaign for really good beer (CAMRGB) of which Miroslav Šuvak is proud member!!! They learned us not to be a beer snobs, but to respect beers!

Special thanks to the guys from Enegren Brewing Company. When we were in the researching mode, these fellows answered all our questions, and also helped us with their advices. They are similar to us - long time friends and homebrewers (ok, there's 3 of them, and 2 of us :)), decided to open a small scale brewery and now they are doing great. We hope one day we'll visit them in Moorpark, California and try their beers!!!!

Other Ways You Can Help

We hope you have found this project interesting, and that you'll back us!!! We are doing all of this because we love to brew beer, and we love to drink craft beer! Since on Croatian beer market currently doesn't exists a single craft brewery which makes hoppy American ales, help us by sharing our project on your social networks, and tell your friends about it!  

Oh yeah, and don't forget, you' re helping to start something great in Croatia. 

Croatian craft beer revolution!!!!!