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700

“It’s been 700 years already since the famous Lithuanian Duke Gediminas’s letter to prominent Western cities, where the name of Vilnius is mentioned for the first time ever. In the course of history, Vilnius had been struck by multiple crucial events that have shaped the city in their own indigenous way. However, besides Vilnius becoming the capital of Lithuania and one of the fast developing European cities, let’s just realize that the citizens also lived their ordinary everyday lives as well as they were episodically amused by the brewers’ craftsmanship. Also, the numerous travelers wrote about the malt drinks they’ve tasted back in Vilnius: There is this mention by the famous geographer Mercator as of 1590, that the locals from Vilnius make malt drinks in different ways and from different grains. The historic writings from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania also often mention the oat-barley – a special mixture of oats and barley malt intended exclusively for brewing local beer in Vilnius. 700 is our own interpretation and the attempt to reconstruct the taste and the texture of the old beer that the citizens of Vilnius could have supposedly brewed from the oat-barley. With its historical ingredients, the beer takes us back to the Baroque days of Vilnius, but by brewing 700 with modern technologies, we mean that nowadays the Lithuanian capital Vilnius is a part of the modern Western culture.

Label’s author: prof. Giedrius Jonaitis