Hopsylvania

Brewing & art project by Radu Luchian, blending the natural with the supernatural.

My beers are brewed at home in small quantities simply out of passion for the craft and as a tribute to that which inspires them, so they are not available for sale.

02/12/2025

Join us this Thursday, December 4th, 5 PM, at the Higgins Ale Works Taproom (Karlstr. 122) where we are celebrating the release of our "Midnight Mantra" Imperial Mocha Stout under the last full moon of the year. We deliberately chose this special day for our release and even have the full moon prominently featured on the label artwork itself.

Midnight Mantra was brewed together with Higgins Ale Works using Belizean cacao nibs from Truly Craft Chocolate and Ethiopian coffee beans from Café Blá, then matured in the cellar for almost a year before finally being packaged.

19/08/2025

Up in smoke! Got to try the new Grodziskie-style beer brewed by alongside the original one that gifted me at just a couple of months ago. Also added a bottle of their Kräusen to the line-up, as well as a Rauchbier from , and two of my own "Ashes Of Light" verticals: a smoked dark saison and a juniper raw ale. Quite interesting to notice the differences between all these smoked beers in contrast to each other. Many thanks to for always being a terrific host and letting us do this at .eu .

14/08/2025

Going from very chilly rainy weather to scorching heat within just a few days also means going from darker maltier beers to lighter floral ones, like this wildflower honey gruit, enjoyed here by the river Isar in Munich with feet dipped in its cooling waters. Really pleased with how this single malt no-hop beer turned out, brewed with six different herbs and fermented with a wild yeast from the foothills of the Țarcu Mountains in Romania.

06/08/2025

Experimenting with something that I haven't tried before: carbonic maceration. These sweet cherries were sealed off in a small keg, purged of any oxygen, and pressurized at 1 bar where they will spend the next half a year fermenting from the inside out. The idea is that in the absence of oxygen fermentation would happen with enzymes instead of bacteria or wild yeast, breaking down those juices to produce a fuller flavor that I'm hoping to incorporate in a future sour ale.

03/08/2025

Always enjoy sharing some of my beers with friends, especially when they're fellow beer geeks themselves, like .beery.tales. Together we tried some of my recent brews, though "recent" might not be the most appropriate word given the long-term conditioning some of these went through, like the 3 year old juniper raw ale or the 12 month old blueberry wild ale, among others. Cheers and beers!

29/07/2025

Introducing "Ashes Of Light", a mixed fermented dark saison homebrewed with smoked malts and cherry wood smoked hops, then additionally spiced with dried black chanterelle mushrooms and further dry-hopped with the very same smoked hops. Named after the song by Lustre, this earthy smoky beer was refermented on Brettanomyces, blending the funk of old farmhouse ales with the rich umami flavor of fungi.

20/06/2025

Stoked to be once again pouring some of my devious fermentations at . Here's the line-up for this year:

• 𝐀𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐬 𝐎𝐟 𝐋𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 (5.5%) - Smoked saison with black chanterelles and cherry-wood smoked hops

• 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐏𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 (4.6%) - Wild ale brewed with wild hops, conditioned on foraged blueberries

• 𝐅𝐣𝐚𝐫𝐚 (5.3%) - Farmhouse ale brewed entirely with foraged yarrow instead of hops

• 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐭 (5.6%) - Wild ale brewed with six different herbs, refermented on organic polyfloral honey

Come by this Saturday at the homebrewers' market between 12:00-15:00 to try them and even take some home.

This will be the first time any of my bottles will be available for sale, so if you've ever wanted to get your hands on some this is the moment.

Kiss the goat! 🐐 🤘 🦇

06/05/2025

Dug up the very last bottle of "Maggot Brain" session black IPA from the back of the fridge and, despite being over half a year old and just 2.8%, it's still just as refreshing and light as on the day it was bottled.

This was a leftover brew made using the spent grains from an imperial stout, which I remashed, hopped with the few hops I still had in my freezer, and fermented with a US-05 that had been sitting in my fridge for far too long. Turned out quite decent, given the casualness of the so-called recipe.

28/04/2025

Something is in the works and it's going to be dark and heavy! After several separate collabs, it was inevitable that Hopsylvania, Higgins Ale Works, Café Blá, and Truly Craft Chocolate finally teamed up for an epic four-way collab. Earlier this year we got together and brewed a decadent imperial mocha stout which we conditioned on Belizean cacao nibs and Ethiopian coffee. Because all good things take time, expect a late release towards the end of the year. It'll be worth the wait.

22/04/2025

Today we celebrate Earth Day, a day to show support for environmental protection and raise awareness for rights of nature. Earth is our home, the only one we have, and should be celebrated, respected, and cared for every single day, not for just 0.3% of the year.

As a home brewer I've tried to be more mindful of this over the last few years, for example by foraging seasonal ingredients to incorporate in my beers and using wild yeasts to ferment them. I'm well aware this is a privilege not many have, but brewing with foraged ingredients brings me closer to nature, allowing me to slow down and live with the seasons, paying closer attention to changes in the environment and working more with what is given instead of only what's available online.

If you think about it, beer is nothing more than an interpretation of natural processes, where mindfully sourced ingredients can be transformed by micro-organisms into these elixirs we get to enjoy.

14/04/2025

Equipment giveaway! I'm donating these PET fermentation buckets to whoever wants to pick them up:

• 2x 20L graded buckets with handles, including spigots, 3-piece airlocks with gaskets

• 2x 35L graded buckets, including spigots, curved airlocks with gaskets, lids with extra holes for thermowells (with plugs to seal off if you don't want to use a thermowell)

Thermowells can easily be purchased on eBay:
https://www.ebay.de/sch/i.html?_nkw=thermowell

UPDATE: 2x 20L are gone, 2x 35L still available.

These fermenters were used only a few times and always with just Sacch strains, never with Brett, Lacto, Pedio or anything wild. They were always thoroughly washed, cleaned with PBW and sanitized with StarSan. The 35L are great as primary vessels, while the 20L are great as secondary vessels with minimal to no head space.

If you're interested or know a homebrewer or brewing student who is interested, drop me a DM. Pick-up is in Munich in the Sendling-Westpark area. First come, first served!

02/04/2025

When life gives your beer infections, you barrel age them! Recently had to empty my tawny port barrel after conditioning a Flanders red ale in it for half a year, without having anything else to refill it with. Fortunately or unfortunately, my recently Brett-infected imperial cherry chocolate stout made for an ideal candidate to refill the barrel. After already spending six months on cacao nibs and oak chips soaked in red wine, I bottled half of it and transferred the remaining half into this tawny port barrel for some added character.

Looking forward to see how this double barrel aged cherry chocolate stout will turn out, especially given the added Brettanomyces and, in this case, some Pediococcus as well.

Adresse

Auenstraße 100
Munich
80469

Webseite

http://www.hopsylvania.beer/

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