Magazine: The first beer designer

Ákos Tibold calls himself a beer designer. We asked the guerrilla brewer about artisan beer and its place in the market. His work as beer designer involves creating and ‘building’ a beer. For instance he has recently invented a garlic-flavoured beer. At the moment he works as a guerrilla brewer, making beer as a guest in other people’s microbreweries. His spiced with tonka-bean beer Horse Juice came home with a medal from the 2015 Alltech Dublin Craft Beer Cup, but rather surprisingly it wasn’t a big hit in Hungary. The beer designer’s opinion is that what is taking place in Hungary isn’t a beer revolution but a reform process, which is based on IPA and APA beers’ conquest. However, he believes in lagers too. Lots of new beers are created in Hungary and some of them manage to stay in the market. As for the future of artisan beer, the Budapest market is becoming saturated and towns in the country are more and more important in the craft beer scene. It is difficult to compete in the world market, Hungary has to think in terms of new beer styles with which market niche can be filled.