Oriel Beer
The story of Oriel goes back to 2010 when curiosity met passion. More precisely, the founders discovered that they have in common the passion for Belgian-style beers like Orval, Rochefort and other Trappists and decided to join their forces and brew beer as a hobby. For five years, Oriel, back then Uriel, went through all the stages of amateur brewing, from beer kits in a can, to partial mash beers, all-grain beers and even wood barrel aged beers. Twenty liters of beer, the same recipes brewed and improved over time and out of nowhere the acknowledgement appeared. The amateur beers began to win prizes at amateur, but important, competitions all over Europe, in countries like Romania, Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia and Bulgaria.
Ioana Coca and Laurentiu Mandrila, back then with totally different professional backgrounds started to lay the foundations of the plan of a microbrewery.
Both with a diploma in economics and management, but with jobs in high-end fashion sales and music production, Ioana and Laurentiu decided in 2015 to register Oriel as a trademark and began to build from scratch what was to become the future Oriel microbrewery.
It took almost two years to complete the construction and obtain all operating permits, but in the meantime the future beers were decided, being tested before, still in the 20 liters kettle. In December 2017 was the official launch and Oriel Beer came out with two Belgian-style beers, Oriel Blond and Oriel Dubbel.
Oriel brews a wide variety of assortments, having the privilege to create their own ale recipes and putting their mastery into action. Ale is a class of beer brewed using a warm tank fermentation method with specific yeast strains.
In keeping up with the Belgian tradition, all the beers are naturally carbonated in the re-fermentation bottle process, similar to champagne.
The first Oriel tenet is brewing beer from the highest quality ingredients. Constantly working with reliable suppliers from all over Western Europe and United States, the brewers choose wisely their beer’s ingredients from renowned companies like White Labs, Weyermann, Brewferm, Crisp, Hopsi, Yakima Chief Hops, Amoretti or Uncle Roy’s.
Each creation is carefully designed, brewed, bottled, labeled and waxed by hand, materializing in the end in a truly handcrafted piece of art under the form of beer.
In consideration of their work, in 2018, Oriel Beer received the title of The 5th New Brewer in the world, Best Brewer in Romania and Best Beer from Rate Beer Awards, entering also top breweries on Untappd.
Winning several medals at International Competitions from Germany, United Kingdom and Spain (Meininger’s International Craft Beer Award 2019, European Beer Challenge – London – 2019, Barcelona Beer Challenge – 2020, Frankfurt International Trophy – 2020, USA Beer Ratings – 2022) urged the brewers to continue to innovate in brewing exceptional beers.
Since the end of 2017, Oriel has been proud to be an independent brewery, fully operated only by the two founders, brewing small-scale batches of unique beers and creating an enticing experience for all those eager to discover the world of craft, artisanal beer.
The story of Oriel goes back to 2010 when curiosity met passion. More precisely, the founders discovered that they have in common the passion for Belgian-style beers like Orval, Rochefort and other Trappists and decided to join their forces and brew beer as a hobby. For five years, Oriel, back then Uriel, went through all the stages of amateur brewing, from beer kits in a can, to partial mash beers, all-grain beers and even wood barrel aged beers. Twenty liters of beer, the same recipes brewed and improved over time and out of nowhere the acknowledgement appeared. The amateur beers began to win prizes at amateur, but important, competitions all over Europe, in countries like Romania, Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia and Bulgaria.
Ioana Coca and Laurentiu Mandrila, back then with totally different professional backgrounds started to lay the foundations of the plan of a microbrewery.
Both with a diploma in economics and management, but with jobs in high-end fashion sales and music production, Ioana and Laurentiu decided in 2015 to register Oriel as a trademark and began to build from scratch what was to become the future Oriel microbrewery.
It took almost two years to complete the construction and obtain all operating permits, but in the meantime the future beers were decided, being tested before, still in the 20 liters kettle. In December 2017 was the official launch and Oriel Beer came out with two Belgian-style beers, Oriel Blond and Oriel Dubbel.
HopSaSam
HopSaSam is one of the new Belgian breweries (founded in 2012) which innovates but keeps small scale artisanal brewing. The brewer is being very attentive in crafting recipes, and he is known because of the incredible use of yeasts and wooden barrels. The brewery always uses Belgian yeast strains, combining two or more strains to see how the cells multiply and follow the evolution of fermentation through a meticulous process of observation and analysis throughout the entire time. The brewer’s knowledge (graduated zythologist) and experience is immeasurable and can be counted by the numerous awards received for his beers.
“Bier me nen hoek af” ~ beers with a twist is what HopSaSam stands for
Sam Vanderstraeten, 43 years old, was born and raised in Oudenaarde, Belgium. He studied Computer Science and started to work after graduation. During his 20’s, he discovered that there are more than lagers and sweet cherry beers, which were served at local parties.
In 2004 he noticed for the first time that there was a brewing year displayed on the label of Chimay blue. He didn’t have a clue why this was there, since he thought beer was to buy and drink, not to store. Wine is meant to store, beer is to drink. So, in 2005 he bought new bottles and did a vertical tasting of Chimay blue 2004 and 2005. At that point, the magic happened. Sam started discovering all styles he could find during the next few years. He started filling his basement with many beers.
In 2012 Sam started a 2-year long course in zythology and at the same time started HopSaSam as a secondary occupation. First, Sam focused on beer tastings and home brewing. In a reaction to the many many classical blond beers without their own character, his home brews were all creative, diverse and innovative.
In 2015 HopSaSam launched his first commercial beer NONNIVERSAIRE. An atypical barley wine, aged for 4, 5 months on calvados barrels and refermented with champagne yeast. In the same month he launched his beer, HopSaSam won a gold medal at the Brussels Beer Challenge.
Seven years later, HopSaSam have had about 18 different commercial beers, 7 medals in different competitions worldwide and a lot of plans for the future.HopSaSam’s main focus is on creative beers, like brown ale with chocolate & orange, wild hops, stout with habanero peppers, porter with blackberries, black IPA with caramel candies, triple with chestnuts and so many more.
The motion of the collaboration of this partnership has a solid ground with a history that started in 2019, when the breweries virtually met through a VET volunteer that noticed the mutuality between them. At that time, sponsored by own funding, the brewer of HopSaSam came to Bucharest and the two breweries made a collaboration and brewed a Belgian style beer that was aged in traditional Romanian barrels (freshly emptied barrels from Romanian fruits brandy). It was a national and international premiere, the launching was celebrated in Romania with the presence of His Excellence, the Ambassador of Belgium in Romania who acclaimed publicly on the National Television the importance of this collaboration and the bonds created by these two countries.
