Santorini Brewing Company

Santorini Brewing Company — Beer in Wine Country

A Serbian brewer, an American who had made Santorini her home, a Greek oenologist and an English wine merchant met on an island famous for wine. In 2011, that unlikely combination became Santorini Brewing Company—the first microbrewery in the Cyclades.

It was an unusual moment to begin. Greece was in the depths of an economic crisis, its beer market was still dominated by conventional lager, and Santorini’s identity appeared firmly rooted in Assyrtiko. The four founders nevertheless saw room for something different.

Boban Krunic brought the technical experience of a professional brewer. Majda Anderson knew the island as a long-term resident. Yiannis Paraskevopoulos was already known as the oenologist and co-founder of Gaia Wines, while Steve Daniel was an English wine importer, brewing enthusiast and former independent brewery owner.

They installed their equipment in a compact whitewashed building in the traditional village of Mesa Gonia, at the heart of Santorini’s historic wine country. The brewing tanks and bottling line occupy the ground floor, with a small tasting room overlooking the village above. From this modest space, they began making the island’s first local beer.

They called their beers Donkeys, adopting an animal inseparable from Santorini’s steep paths and history. A small family of Yellow, Red, Crazy and White Donkeys emerged, later joined by limited and seasonal releases.

Brewing on an island

Making beer on Santorini presents challenges that mainland breweries do not face. Fresh water is scarce, so the brewing water begins as desalinated seawater. Barley malt comes principally from Germany and Austria, while the brewery draws on hop varieties from Slovenia, the Pacific Northwest and New Zealand. Almost everything required for each brew must first make the journey across the Aegean.

After primary fermentation, a second fermentation takes place in pressurised tanks without additional sugar or injected carbon dioxide. The carbonation develops naturally under pressure. The beers are neither filtered nor pasteurised, and no preservatives are added; they remain living beers.

Solar panels contribute to the brewery’s energy supply, while spent grain and other brewing by-products are returned to local vineyards as fertiliser. The arrangement connects a young brewery with the agricultural landscape surrounding it—and returns part of each brew to the island’s vines.

The Donkeys

Yellow Donkey was the brewery’s first beer and remains its most widely recognised. It established the fresh, gently bitter character that came to define the Donkey name.

Crazy Donkey followed in 2013 as the first IPA produced in Greece—a decisive departure from the conventional lagers that had long dominated the country’s beer market.

More than a decade after its foundation, Santorini Brewing Company remains deliberately small. Its beers are shaped by international brewing knowledge and ingredients, but also by the practical realities and wine culture of the island where they are made: fresh, unfiltered Donkeys born among the vineyards of Mesa Gonia.