Malanka is a craft brewery from Minsk, Belarus, which was started in 2019. It was created by 3 homebrewers — Jury Plieskačeŭski, Viačaslaŭ Radzivonaŭ, Andrej Vasin.

Who are we?

For several years we have been pushing our homebrewing skills in brewing all the craziest beer styles: from lichtenheiner and fruit milkshake IPAs to ultra-thick imperial stouts and authentic ales of spontaneous fermentation. We get our inspiration from the experience of American craft brewers, and that’s why we decided to open up a microbrewery and throw ourselves into experiments with recipes. All brewing equipment is totally DIY: we designed our brewhouse, wired the control panels, improved the fermenters, installed the cooling system. And though it’s our first steps in professional brewing, we aim to brew extraordinary beer in accordance with best modern and historic practices.

Why Malanka?

Malanka (meaning “Lightning” in Belarusian) is very bright and memorable image, present in various traditional tales and legends. What’s more, ethymologically the word “malanka” is loosely connected to “mlyn” (meaning “mill”) and “muka” (“flour”), as well as “maloć ziernie” (“to mill the grains”), which brings this term closer to brewing and baking. Also important that the latinizied spelling (in accordance with the Transliteration instruction) of the word — Malanka — is easily readable by native speakers of almost any language.

Our beers

Our first beers were presented in May 2019. They were beers in 5 different styles: from super crushable grisette to luscious double IPA and tempting oak chip aged pastry stout.