Why PAGAN BREWS
This slogan has adorned our bottles and souvenirs for a year now. As Labietis Brewery approaches its tenth anniversary, “PAGAN BREWS” best describes our identity on the world stage. It encompasses our roots, our vision of beer’s evolution since prehistory, and the guiding principles we follow in every brew. What follows is our manifesto.
On the Edge of the Beer World
If Europe is the cradle of modern beer, Latvia has always existed on its periphery. We are marginal. Christian culture arrived here late and never fully took hold. Unlike much of Europe, Latvians were never forbidden from brewing at home, nor did we ever fully substitute prayers for herbs.
This history has kept our tradition of gathering medicinal plants alive and well. Almost every Latvian still has a jar of herbal tea in their pantry. We look at this heritage through the eyes of a contemporary brewer—drawing inspiration from the Baltic region’s fascinating cultural history to create a beer that meets modern standards of taste and quality.
The Boredom of One Faith
Looking back over 10,000 years of brewing history, the belief that beer requires only three ingredients—barley, hops, and water—is a recent novelty.
What is beer, anyway? We believe beer can be any fermented drink made from grains and plants. Hops are simply one of many herbs that can enrich a brew. Similarly, barley is just one source of sugar; we brew with wheat, rye, oats, and buckwheat, enriching them with honey, forest berries, and garden fruits. We stand for beer without prejudice.
A Taste of Nature: Terroir
We cannot know exactly what beer tasted like 200 years ago, but we know it was made from what was at hand. Like brewers since time immemorial, we use local ingredients as much as possible. These flavors are intuitive to us and best represent our “fragile cultural fabric.”
If a raw material is available in Latvia, we use it. Our daily fermentations feature Latvian barley, wheat, and rye malts, local honey, over ten varieties of Latvian berries, and wild-harvested fruits.
And, of course, we use more than 30 Latvian medicinal plants alongside our hops. To achieve the best possible historical flavor, we do use specialized malts and yeast strains from Europe and hop varieties from around the globe. However, our underlying goal is to create a sensory record of our environment and time.
We return to our roots with modern knowledge: local ingredients and a Latvian perspective on flavor, paired with an open view of the world. Like an oak tree with roots deep in our soil and branches caressed by overseas winds, we seek a balanced taste of culture and nature. Call us children of nature. Call us modern savages. Call us pagans who make beer.
Join us in exploring PAGAN BREWS — contemporary beer with a taste of heritage.
Cheers!
– The Labietis Brewing Community