My wife organized a surprise visit to one of the biggest breweries in Bulgaria.

Well... she told me "Sunday afternoon, 16:00 PM, be ready!" And then, we drove to the neighbouring city - Stara Zagora, which is located 30 kilometres from my home town. That's where is located one of the major commercial breweries in Bulgaria - Zagorka, currently owned by the Heineken group.

So, we got the tickets and after almost getting late for the appointed hour (due to my visit to a local shop to byu a non-alcoholic Zagorka beer) we were on our way into the brewery. Well, we were the only two visitors in the brewery for this hour, so the guide girl was going to give us all of her attention.
Taking photos in the brewery was not allowed, with the exclusion of two or three places.

It's sad, that I did not have the chance to take photo of an equipment, already 50 years old, which is still functional and they make cider there. It was improted from the Czech republic and was very hi-tech back then.
One of the things we were allowed to take photo of is one old drawing of the brewery, which was known as "The Pub"(I am not sure if it can be translated this way, but I can't think of a closer definition right now.

Wnd one more places, allowed to be photographed was this one:

And this is just some print of an image, showing one of the main men, in the beginning of the Zagorka history.
Back then it had more archaic name, which literally translates as Future, but very very oldish (Бъдещност).

In the brewery istelf we were allowed to visit only the bottling line, which had recently bottled about 300 hectolitres of beer (only PET bottles line), which is a lot! Also the girl showd us all the beer labels during the whole brewery history, which was also very cool. I was a bit disappointed, that they dod not show us another pard of the brewing proocess, for instance the mashing or the boiling of the beer.

Well, one cool touch of the visit was that at the end of the tour we were given the chance to try unfiltered and unpassteurized Zagorka beer, which has an expiry date about a week after it's brewed.

And one final cool touch... Zagorka was the first ever company in Bulgaria to make an advertisement campaign, showing a woman, holding a beer glass, and dressed in a swimsuit. Wow... so uncommon for the times back then (in the 70s).

Kinda cool, huh?
So that was my happy Sunday afternoon... Wish them all to be the same!
Cheers, friends!