Bulgarian Beer: The Brands, the History and What to Order

Bulgaria was a wine and rakia country until the 1870s, when foreign brewers arrived and built its first breweries. Today Bulgarians drink about 73 liters of beer a head every year, most of it cold pale lager from a handful of big names. Here are the brands you will see on every menu, how they started, where the craft beer is, what a beer costs and how locals drink it.

Bulgarian beer at a glance

Bulgaria ranks 14th in the world for beer drunk per person.

A typical Sofia menu lists a few Bulgarian pale lagers, perhaps a dark beer, and one or two international names.

A short history of beer in Bulgaria

Beer arrived late. Until the 19th century it was practically unknown in a country that drank wine and rakia, and the first brewers were foreigners from Austria-Hungary, France and Switzerland who came shortly before the Liberation of Bulgaria in 1878.

The first beer came from exiles. Hungarian refugees led by Lajos Kossuth settled in Shumen after the revolution of 1848 and brewed for themselves. A French railway engineer named Ducorp ran a small brewery in Knyazhevo, at the edge of Sofia, from 1873 to 1876. The Czech Jiří Prošek noticed that the Shopi, the villagers around Sofia, already brewed a rough harvest beer from sprouted barley and wild hops.

The first commercial brewery opened in Plovdiv in 1876, set up by Swiss founders. Production began in 1882 in the Kamenitsa area of the city, and Kamenitza beer still carries the name. That same year the Czech brewer Franz Milde founded the Shumensko brewery in Shumen, and in 1884 Prošek and his brothers opened the Vitosha brewery in Sofia, the brewery known today as Ariana.

After the First World War there were 18 breweries in the country, and all of them were nationalized after the Second World War. Since 1989, the biggest international brewers have bought the old factories, and since about 2013 a wave of small craft breweries has brought IPAs, pale ales and imperial stouts.

The big Bulgarian beer brands

These are the beers you will see on Bulgarian menus, with where they are brewed and who owns them now.

Zagorka

Zagorka is brewed in Stara Zagora in central Bulgaria, and with Kamenitza it is one of the 2 best-known Bulgarian beers. The everyday pour is a crisp pale lager, and the brewery also makes Zagorka Special and the Stolichno bock.

At Sputnik, a cocktail bar in the center of Sofia, a half-liter of draft Zagorka costs €3 and a 0.33 liter glass €2.70, which gives you a fair idea of the going rate in town.

Kamenitza

Kamenitza is the oldest beer in Bulgaria. Its brewery in Plovdiv grew out of the first commercial brewery in the country, founded by Swiss brewers in 1876.

The brand belongs to Molson Coors and comes as a pale lager and a dark beer. If you take a day in Plovdiv, drinking a Kamenitza in the city that has brewed it since the 1880s is a small thing I'd do on purpose.

Shumensko

Shumensko comes from Shumen in the northeast, the town where Hungarian exiles first brewed beer in Bulgaria after 1848. The brewery itself dates from 1882, when the Czech brewer Franz Milde founded it, and the year is on the label.

It is a Carlsberg brand today. Shumensko makes a lager and a red ale, plus a premium and a dark version.

Ariana

Ariana is the Sofia beer. Its brewery began in 1884 as the Vitosha brewery, founded by the Czech brothers Prošek, who also owned an old beer cellar in the city, and it belongs to Heineken today.

Ariana also comes in big plastic bottles, the pack Bulgarian breweries use for their standard and economy lagers. There is a dark Ariana too.

Astika

Astika is brewed in Haskovo in the south of the country and belongs to Molson Coors, like Kamenitza. It is a standard pale lager in a brown bottle.

I'd treat it as an everyday beer to pick up cold from a shop fridge on a hot afternoon.

Stolichno

Stolichno is a bock made by the Zagorka brewery, a dark, malty beer that is heavier than the pale lagers.

This is the beer I'd order on a cold night, with a stew or roast meat.

Burgasko

Burgasko is the beer of Burgas, on the Black Sea, and another Molson Coors brand. It is a pale lager, and I think it tastes best where it is brewed, on a terrace by the sea.

On the Black Sea coast, I'd order it with fried sprats or grilled fish.

Pirinsko and the regional brands

Pirinsko is brewed in Blagoevgrad, under the Pirin Mountains in the southwest, and belongs to Carlsberg. It is a pale lager that suits grilled meat well.

Smaller regional brands still exist across the country. Ledenika is brewed in Mezdra, Lomsko in Lom on the Danube, Plevensko in Pleven and MM in Varna, while Boliarka and Britos both come from Veliko Tarnovo. Boliarka also distributes the German Warsteiner in Bulgaria.

Bulgarian craft beer

Home-brewing took off in Bulgaria around 2010, and commercial craft brewing got going around 2013, when Pivovarna 359, the pioneer, split up and Divo Pivo and White Stork went separate ways. Glarus in Varna followed in 2014.

Most of the craft scene is in the capital. Sofia Electric Brewing, Cohones, Kazan Artizan, Sofia Brew and a handful of nomadic brewers make IPAs, pale ales, sours and imperial stouts, and Kanaal, the first craft beer bar in the country, has poured them since the first ones reached the market. Craft beer in Sofia costs about €4 to €6 a glass, roughly double a local lager.

Outside Sofia, Metalhead and Beer Bastards brew in Burgas, Meltum in Lovech since 2019, Rhombus in Pazardzhik since 2016, with a restaurant next to the brewery, and Pelta in Plovdiv.

How Bulgarians drink beer

Beer belongs to the main course. A Bulgarian meal starts with a small glass of rakia and the salads, and once the salads are cleared, the table moves on to wine or beer for the grilled meat.

That makes beer the natural partner for Bulgarian food off the grill. Kebapche, kyufte and a mixed grill come with a cold lager almost everywhere, from a mehana, the traditional tavern, to a neighborhood grill.

From May to September, a lot of young locals start the evening outside. They buy cans of beer from a klek, the small shops in basement windows, for about €1 to €2 a can, and sit on benches in the City Garden or by NDK before moving on to the bars and clubs of Sofia's nightlife.

The toast is nazdrave, said with eye contact around the table. It works for every glass, from beer to rakia, and it is the first of the Bulgarian phrases I'd learn.

How much beer costs in Bulgaria

Beer is cheap in Bulgaria. These are the prices I'd expect in Sofia in 2026.

A cocktail in central Sofia costs about €7 to €14, so 2 to 4 beers cost about the same as a single cocktail. On a budget trip to Sofia, I'd drink local lager in neighborhood bars and save the cocktails for one night.

Beer festivals in Bulgaria

Beer festivals, called birfest, take place every year in towns across the country, including Sofia, Plovdiv, Pleven, Gabrovo, Sevlievo, Bansko and Vidin.

For craft beer, the Balkan Beer Bash in Sofia has been the big one. Its 2025 edition brought 38 breweries to a warehouse near Sofia Central bus station on 11 and 12 April, and the organizers called it the last in that format and on that scale.

Where to drink Bulgarian beer in Sofia

Any bar or mehana in the center pours the big brands.

For Bulgarian craft beer, start at Kanaal on Madrid Boulevard, with around 38 taps, then try High Five Taproom near Vitosha Boulevard for a flight of 4 small pours from about €12. Kanaal and Barfly also make my list of the best bars in Sofia, next to rakia and cocktail bars such as Raketa and Sputnik.

Beer is one part of the Bulgarian table, and the other Bulgarian drinks fill the rest of the day, from ayran with grilled kebapche to boza with a morning banitsa. With a slow dinner, I'd pick Bulgarian wine, a Mavrud above all.