Liberty UA Lager is a robust beer; it is gentle and well balanced. The body is light and very dry, the hops spicy but not strident. It is an elegant beer, not an aggressive one. Right now, Ukrainian brew master Yuliya Kirilenko that is brewing at Beermaster Brewery (Bălți, Moldova) is finding that tough focusing on the beer brewing she has dedicated her life to.
At times there’s simply too much emotional turmoil and pain to comprehend as the Yuliya, who was born in Ukraine and has worked in Kyiv before the invasion as a brew master. She reflects on the impact of Russia’s invasion on her country and her fellow Ukrainian brewers.
Right now, is something indescribable, I would say, because there are brewers, I have known that died. There is one brewer’s house that is completely destroyed. To escape the war, I left Kyiv with mine two kids and found myself here at Beermaster Brewery. It was extremely difficult and stressful, the first week or two. My mental health has been affected as well.
It’s been two months still I am here in Moldova and you know, it’s up and down, it changes. I’m trying to guide myself a little bit, just trying to see where I’m at. Trying to feel myself and trying to figure myself out.
I am extremely conscious of the importance of trying to manage my feelings and have started working as a brewer here. I started a couple of weeks ago, which helps me enormously. But you know, sometimes it goes to a certain extent that it’s scary, the thoughts that come to you. Because at that point, there’s so many things going on, you need to carry so much all at once that you are just like, I can’t handle this anymore. I’m just like, what’s the point where it’s all going? It’s never ending like what should I do with my life now? What am I living for?
Everyone is doing this differently, but the only goal that I have is not to feel as if I’m a victim in this situation. Because I’m not and I’m not positioning myself like this. For the first two weeks (of the invasion), I had this feeling that I’m a victim, like, I don’t know what I should do because I rarely feel like this in my life.
Starting brewing was the turning point for me when I changed this mindset of not being a victim. That gave me a filling that I’m still a brewer, and I still want to brew and create. I want to have my family and kids safe. I don’t want to get injured or hurt. I don’t want to go to this to certain points where I’m just, ‘you know what? I’m done. I cannot brew beers at this point … I cannot do anything.
The Liberty UA Ale that I brewed here is all about that, because everything that is really great and inspiring in our life is created by the people who can work and live in freedom.