Inventive young brewers on the islands are experimenting with new, sometimes radical, flavours, discovering unique blends and creating handcrafted beer for sophisticated palates. The result? Delicious drafts, varied bevvies and unique sips – all handcrafted – hitting shelves, bars and eateries around the island. Hopheads have long clocked the changes, but this upsurge of excitement, following the introduction of these new flavours, is now hitting the mainstream. Let’s meet the players. 

1. Lord Chambray

“Malta is finally ready to enjoy craft beer,” Valentina Rossetto from Lord Chambray says. The craft brewery was the first to hit the rock, officially launching in July 2014 with three beers in their portfolio, the brain-child of Italian national Samuele D’Imperio. His passion in the art of the brew led to him leave Australia, where he had lived for some years, only to land in Gozo, an island for which he always had a soft spot, and where he had holidayed with his family when he was a child.

It was there that he set up his outfit and, today, in only four years, Lord Chambray has won multiple international awards (12 at the last count!) for its innovative methods and has grown to include six brews, whose names – such as San Blas, Golden Bay, Fungus Rock and Blue Lagoon – recall the zest of Maltese sites. The brand also produces two seasonal beers as well as limited edition suds. 

“Craft beer is changing the current local beer scene,” Valentina says.

“Every year, Malta hosts millions of tourists from cold countries, such as the UK, the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany and Ireland, where the consumption of craft beer is the highest in the world. And now, the Maltese are looking for the same quality and for something which is a bit different to what they’ve been used to.” 

2. The Phoenix Raw Beer

Alessandro Nardi founded Phoenix Brewers Ltd, the producers of The Raw Beer, together with his wife, and since then, the microbrewery has gone from strength to strength. It delivers four main varieties of the swill, each focused on a different tone and texture: Tar Robust Porter, which includes added coffee beans; Rubin Double Ale, a classic Belgian full-flavoured beer; the deep gold Rust Rabat Ale, containing cinnamon, citrus and grapefruit accents; and the light Blonde Flora Ale, which has been fermented with wild Maltese honey, leaving a lingering fizz on the tongue. 

Alessandro lives and tastes his artisanal beer, knowing that the distinction between a bevvie made with heart and one which is mass-produced is fundamental. “You cannot compare an artisanal beer to one made through industrial processes. They are two completely different things,” he asserts. He underlines the necessity of good water, malt and hops which come together in a process radically different to the norm, shorn free of the shackles of pasteurization and filtration, thus retaining the rawness gifted by the materials. “Experimenting with new recipes and methods makes this all quite complicated but very exciting. Sometimes, months pass between production and tasting so every time we dream up a new technique we spend whole days watching it all ferment, finally bottling it up with a mix of excitement and curiosity. Those first few sips – once the brew has been bottled – can be very emotional!” he smiles. 

3. The Brew

This personal touch is also evident in the passion and care delivered by Dmitriy Tolok, who opened The Brew, a restaurant and micro-brewery in the heart of Sliema, with his family in 2016. “I can compare craft brewing with art”, Dmitriy says. “Of course, we need to retain certain styles, but we are still very flexible in what we do, and I love to create new recipes.” He describes the process by which he formulates a new flavour. “I start to read the history of the style of beer I want to recreate or emulate, trying to find interviews with people who have worked in that tradition, seeking any suggestions of how to mix and how to adapt the recipe to Malta’s climate and our guests.” 

The Brew opened with just one beer on its portfolio, but it now offers four brews all year round, including the rich draft known as the Dark, the lighter Golden Ale and the Honey Mead, as well as the fortified Maltese Ale. They also have seasonal sips, and, to date, they have fermented 14 new types of pints including “honey beer, cherry beer, made in the Belgian tradition, and Mandarina IPA with natural citrus peels.”

He sees a bright future for the craft here in Malta, saying that he believes the island will also push innovation. “Maltese craft brew has just been born and we are already competitive internationally. I believe that within the next ten years we will actually have brewed beer from Maltese malt and Maltese hops. Malta will be famous not only because of its high-quality brews, but also because of its high-quality ingredients which have been grown on Maltese land,” he states.

4. The Huskie Craft Beer Company

But, the creation of an iconic artisanal beer is more than the sum of its parts, and the skill set required – as indicated by all the creatives in the field - descends from the marriage of science and art. “The brewing of beer is a very scientific process, and the set up and running of a brewery requires a lot of engineering skills,” Jean Mikhail Bickle, one of the two founders of The Huskie Craft Beer Company, says. The engineer, together with his friend, Miguel Camilleri, started out making craft beer as a hobby, but, after working together in the UK for a year and experiencing the burgeoning of the scene there, “the seed was planted”. 

They began by experimenting with various techniques – Jean, indeed, describes brewing as “a very complex task”, taking much “time and experience until you can make something noteworthy” – and it wasn’t until they had perfected their first three beers that they considered looking at setting up a proper outfit, which has proven a boon in more ways than one. “Owning your own brewery gives you the liberty and control over the various parameters which ultimately affect your final product. Apart from that, we are also in command of the way we do our business. We both believe in being eco-friendly and have set up our brewery to be as green and efficient as possible,” he says.

This can be seen in their products, such as the Alpha IPA, the Zeta Belgian Saison and the Beta Porter. “Each beer has a story - from the creation of the recipe to the final product - and we go into much detail before deciding on what style to brew next,” Jean continues. It’s all about the experience, according to the brewer, about offering people “a taste they won't forget.” 

5. Stretta Craft Beer

Indeed, for these micro-brewers, beer is where the heart is. Stretta Craft Beer’s John Borg Barthet also dons this mantle with pride. He launched in 2016 “after years of home brewing purely for the love of interesting beer styles and experimenting with flavours and recipes” he says, outlining the way the beer grew out of “a simple home brewing lab”, which he describes as “the tiniest of setups in a basement” and has “grown from strength to strength as the years have rolled by”, hitting the number one spot on the site Rate Beer, in under two years. 

“Craft beer is an expression of flavour as well as of brand personality. It's a unique flavour experience created by a brewer and enjoyed by thousands of beer lovers throughout the island. It's almost a personal experience,” he declares. Indeed, the name of his brew derives from a personal link to Valletta’s Strait Street – “my father was born there and I grew up hearing all the stories of its prolific nightlife and beer culture” – and, today, the microbrewery “uses a wide variety of hops, grains, yeast strains and recipe methods from around the world, often creating recipes that have never been put together in that combination before.”