Pathetic Parliament

To all our Italian brewing friends, we are sad to hear about the unfair taxes levied on you today. It is appalling that you should have a 33% hike that, since 2004, has totaled in excess of 114% tax increase on your tiny businesses while the tax increase on wine has remained zero. This is truly a symptom of poor governance that chooses to bully the smaller guy and give preferential treatment to big industries rather than confront them. Sadly, it might be at the cost of so many young businesses who, if given the chance, would have taken advantage of the incremental growth their industry has fostered and hired locally, produced more revenue and continued to increase tourism.

The specter of a tax increase has been hanging over the heads of the small brewers for a while now, but today the guillotine has fallen. Even though many breweries had been resigned to the tax hike, the news is a big blow. In the end, it will affect the consumers since beer in Italy will now cost even more. The tax hike will happen in three increments, starting October 10, 2013, then again on January 1, 2014 and once more on January 1, 2015. The excise tax will go from 2.33 to 2.70 euros per hectoliter per degrees plato (the unit of measurement of the density of beer for its immediate use), plus the 1% increase tacked on this year on the VAT. 

The saddest part is that this increase has fallen heavily on the shoulders of the craft brewers to cover school taxes. This industry is one of the few growing sectors in the crashing Italian economy; yet, putting the burden on the craft brewers was the simplest way for the Italian government to take the €448 million with the least amount of criticism and fight. In short, the Italian government continues to take from the weak, instead of confronting the rich.

If there was ever a time that Italians should work together, the time is now. Put aside your disagreements and unite. No industry, no small business, nor, especially, should hard working entrepreneurs be subjected to bullying by their government. The brewers owe it to their consumers to fight this increase. We just hope that it’s not a little too late. But in the end, how does a mouse topple an elephant, especially one that is steadfast on stomping you out rather than face the poacher—big industries.

A Very Fitting Finish

It was a very fitting finish to our adventure to have had Agostino Arioli from Birrificio Italiano visit us here in Denver.

When Paul and I were setting out to write this book, we weren’t very sure how we would be taken amongst the Italian craft brewers, publicans, critics, writers, etc. Mostly, the brewers. After all, they were the people that counted most in our story. We had decided in a flash, almost as an afterthought, that the best manner to tackle these interviews was to start north and work our way to Rome, to just jump in and hit as many breweries as we could. We wanted very much to visit Torino to speak with Teo Musso and view the surrounding area where great breweries like Troll, Grado Plato, Loverbeer, Montegioco and many more were located, but it was more feasible to start in Milan.

We had just decided, what the hell, let’s reach out to these people and see what they say.

Of course, if we were going to go to Milan, we had to speak with the great Agostino. But would he want to speak with us? In the wee hours of the morning we sent our email out to Agostino. In no time his office responded to us. We were instructed to create a contact for Agostino on Skype, this would be the best manner. We were certainly nervous, just a little, I have to admit. But that call changed everything for us. When he offered to pick us up at the airport and set us up with a hotel room, we were sure this was the right first step.

Ago was beyond gracious, as were nearly every person we spoke to. But what made our visit with Ago special was that he had set the standard for us as he had done for the Italian craft beer movement. He spent an enormous amount of his time, two days’ worth, explaining what we had only read. He opened our eyes and many doors. On our last day, as he drove us to the train station, we told him of our plans to stop in at Lambrate. We had just planned to walk in, have a beer and see who we might end up talking to. Instead, Ago reached for his cell and called Alessandra. His words, words we would hear and humble us again and again from many more brewers, were, “My friends from America…”

That meeting with Alessandra, Giampaolo, Davide, Stefano and Fabio was more than we could have asked for and we had Agostino to thank for having introduced us and initiated that friendship.

So it was with great honor and fortune that we should have concluded our run for personal interviews by having Ago here with us in Denver. I was freshly back from Italy, I hadn’t even been back a week and here I could say in person, thank you, Ago. It was an absolute pleasure to return the favor to him and his brewers, Giacomo, Giulio and Maurizio who also had a hand in taking care of us at Birrificio Italiano.

We had set up a meet and greet and sat on the airy patio of the Falling Rock while another event, the tapping of Full Sail Session beers, went on in the background. They poured their beers, we poured ours, beers that Ago had brought along, with a few beers we provided. When I walked into the Falling Rock, I was introduced to the Full Sail brewer/owner Jamie Emmerson who was talking to Chris Black, owner of the Falling Rock. Jamie told me of his first Italian beer experience. It was at Disney World/Epcot Center. He saw that there was an Italian craft beer called Tipo Pils. He gave it a whirl and was shocked to have found his favorite beer.

I said to him, “Would you like to meet the brewer?” He didn’t know quite what I meant. “He’s sitting on the patio right now. Would you like to meet him?” His jaw dropped. He couldn’t believe it.

“Are you serious?”

Yes, yes I was.

But the proudest moment for me personally was to have been complimented by Agostino for my pour. “Bravo, Bryan.” Ago said to me. Italians, like all things food, are particular and they are very particular about how their beers are poured. Much like a Guinness, you pour the beer straight in and allow the head to rise, with some time to let the head settle and harden before filling the rest of the glass.

“Bravo, Bryan.” he said to me. “I learned from you, the masters,” I responded.

And so we have.

While our trip has ended, our journey has not

The past 12 days have been incredible. Paul and I have traveled countless kilometers across Piedmont, through the Lombard into the Emilia-Romagna and across Umbria to reach Lazio. We trekked across Rome like the early disciples, crossing the Tiber multiple times in search of not churches, but pubs, multi-taps with grails filled of barley, not wine. We spoke to countless brewers, marketers, publicans and beer lovers. In the end, we learned so much. Our notebooks and recorders are filled with wise words, long tales of searching, and brewing, stories of overcoming endless obstacles and stories of withering hopes in a country that seems to sink into its own economic marshes.

And still, the people we’ve spoken to persevere. They believe in what they’re doing. And their fruits of barley are unifying. They are still growing steadily against all odds.

While our trip has ended, our journey has not. We have a long road to climb. But we have a wind of whispers from so many who believe in us at our backs. For our families, the sacrifice has been somewhat great. For our coworkers who’ve held the brunt of labor during our busy season, we cannot thank enough. Tee shirts and hats and even great beers cannot match the gratitude we have for your sacrifices. So we have that too behind us in making this book.

Now the time has come to write. Our deadline is fast approaching. We have until April 2014 to have a book in hand, ready to sell. Several brewers from Italy will be here for the Craft Brewer’s Conference. Events will be held, great beers will be drunk, fantastic brewers will be met. This will be for many of them their first face to face with the American public. Paul and I have been and will continue to promote their message and their beers. We believe in them too.

Upon my return, in the first week of June we will be meeting Agostino Arioli of Birrificio Italiano, one of the four original founders. We will be holding an event at the Falling Rock, Friday, June 7^th. So come have a taste of what’s to come, hang out with Paul and me and hear our story first hand. But most importantly, come down and meet one of the great brewers of Italy, perhaps of the world, Agostino Arioli.

‘Til Friday the 7th, Cin Cin

 

For the love of Loverbeer

While sours still have not caught on with Italian beer drinkers, there are plenty of brewers making them, such as Panil, Black Barrel and Montegioco with almost all breweries having one or two. But Valter Loveriere, owner of Loverbeer, has decided to take it all the way and adhere to the long-established traditions from Belgium. Not far from Grado Plato brewery in Torino, it doesn’t seem to bother Valter that not too many people in Italy buy his product, but then, he’s never approached this market in the ‘normal’ manner like others have.

Many breweries placed some style of lighter beer or amber into their repertoire to cater to the Italian palate and image of beer. The first brewers had to go out into the market and pioneer their beer culture. Valter has done none of this. Instead, Valter built his personal style, shared it with the top critics and then allowed his beers to slowly find their audience.

Valter’s passion came from a home brewing kit his wife gave him as a birthday gift. Valter methodically researched the Flemish and Belgium style beers he loved. He then redesigned them to meet his environment, taking advantage of the Piedmont Barolo and Barbera region to formulate Italian recipes using ingredients like grapes and plums for color and acidity.

After years of working his beers he felt he had reached a point where he was ready to take the next step. Networking through other home brewers in 2004 he found the Italian beer critic and writer Luca Giaccone and asked his opinion. Giaccone approved and suggested a few change.

With a bag over his shoulders holding a few of his beers, Valter approached Lorenzo Dabove, known as Kuaska, a writer and beer critic who has been the great flag bearer of the Italian movement, at an international festival and asked if he would mind having a taste. Kuaska has been the barometer for many of these new brewers, giving advice and helping them hone in their craft. Kuaska liked what he was doing and encouraged Valter to open his own brewery.

With Kuaska’s green light Valter was ready to take the plunge. Kuaska took Valter to Cantillon to help him advance his skills a little more. He also got Valter to attend the beer festival in Rimini, where Kuaska had created a special class for home brewers that year. The festival in Rimini is like our Great American Beer Festival in the United States. They began to promote his beers with connections to bloggers and people in the movement in Italy and throughout Europe.

In the following years, Valter offered eight styles to several crucial Italian publicans, publicans who understood beers. But Valter had also groomed his beers for exporting. His typical customers were important producers of craft beers themselves, people with sophisticated palates like Mikkeler. His beer filtered through places like Brew Dog in Scotland, the Briggiert in Norway eventually attracting the notice of BUnited, who’s been the biggest exporter and distributer of Italian beers.

Though Loverbeer is a small operation, producing only 200 barrels a year, Valter has managed to leave his imprint on the Italian movement and finally on the Italian consumer.

The Gypsy

Renzo Losi is a fit man, about 5 foot 7, with gorgeous blue eyes reminiscent of his sisters’ who we met in January at Panil in Parma, eyes that drift into deep thought, grey hair shoulder length in his early 50s. Not a man who should be starting over again, but he is. And he’s starting in a strange land.

Once the brewer of Panil, he left his family business behind, his creations and brewery all in Parma. He and his family could not agree on how to run Panil. For Renzo, selling beers to the local market was imperative. But selling sour beers in Italy isn’t easy; hell, it’s nearly impossible. This year all of Panil’s beers will be shipped either to the United States or to Canada. This is still a young market that hasn’t developed its tastes for beer yet. So last year, Renzo packed his bags, left it all behind.

His new location, Black Barrel is a small, quaint and narrow shop, clean with white walls, a few shelves with a counter three quarters of the way in. There’s a cellar downstairs, like a crypt where several small wooden kegs lay dormant like little round coffins that hold an experiment of spontaneous combusted beers waiting, waiting for their time. Only two of the beers in the front of the shop are his. The last of his brews from Panil. He’s stocked his shelves with other breweries while he begins the painstaking task of building his own coffers. He’s managed. He’s traveled around Torino to the local breweries who’ve been more than happy to accommodate this well respected brewer. He’s been able to brew two beers, a blond and an amber. They are starter beers, and simple for the tastes of his market and when they are mature some will become blenders, some will be the first Black Barrel label. The dark bottles rest to the back of the house, lying on their sides as if napping. It’s not their time yet either.

The question is, what will they be like? Parma is very rich agriculturally. Parma’s culture is a long history of unique and famous cheeses, milks, hams, fruits and vegetables. It is like a mini Payottenland in the Flemish Brabant province filled with wild and unique yeasts. Black Barrel lies in the heart of Torino a big city with traffic and dust. What will be rendered Renzo does not know. One advantage Torino does have for beer making is great water. Torino is famous for this. How Black Barrel’s sours will evolve in this new location is still a mystery. But Renzo doesn’t seem worried about it. He’s up for the challenge. After all, another advantage Black Barrel has is Renzo himself.

Some brewers are just destined to brew

To fill a void from his thankless job as a road worker, Gabriele Ormea’s father found happiness with offshoot projects, distilling liquors, wrangling bees for honey and brewing beer. He was a laborer with a knack. When Gabriele was a boy, his father gave him a sip from his glass. That taste of copper liquid, capped by heavy foam, soft in the mouth exploded into the boy’s life. The awakened taste buds ignited a passion in the young boy that would grow with him and develop his palate beyond his age. That single sip would ripen into a world he could not have foreseen and aligned the stars for an unexpected future.

His father continued to form him, brewing at home together, showing him good beers. In high school, Gabriele worked at bars to make money, further pressing his manifest destiny.  

In 2001 when he was 19 a happenstance contest from the community of Chieri would sow his vocation. The winner of a contest would win a rare and coveted liquor licenses. A shot in the dark, Gabriele and his brother formulated a mock business plan; a brewpub/pizzeria. They had no illusions of winning and at one point, Gabriele contemplated revoking his entry. They had not won, but the two who had placed ahead of them had fallen out for one reason or another and the prize was handed to them.

Still a long shot, they submitted their plans to the bank for a loan. The director of the bank unexpectedly stepped down and in his place a young woman with very little experience found herself playing into the fate of an ordained Gabriele. The new director saw a practical side to their plan and the loan was approved. Shocked, but energized, the prize and the loan became Grado Plato in 2003.

The first two years were spent building a following for the pub and developing beer lovers. Not feeling too confident in his abilities as a brewer in comparison to the already well regarded Lambrate, Baladin, Birrifico Italiano, Gabriele brewed the Sveva, an Italian pilsner and the Spoon River, an amber. It was a practical and economical decision. They were common beers that were familiar styles, easy to explain to the clients, servers and bartenders. The pub was their vehicle to educating their community. Money remained tight.

After a year, they decided to develop an idea along with the agricultural students at the University of Torino to build from earth to glass. A fateful visit from the beer writer and critic, Kuaska, not only boosted their confidence, but he suggested a style—a sticke.

What’s a sticke?

Gabriele’s brother, Sergio went to Dusseldorf to find the style to study. He returned with a case of sticke. They sat and drank and figured out the beer. It took two year before Grado Plato to introduce the Sticher. The ‘er’ is a derivative of the Torino dialect. The beer was good. Kuaska was so impressed he brought them to London for the Great British Beer Festival in 2006 to present the Sticher. It was their first dive into the international beer world and they dove in tasting everything they could.

Sveva had been 70% of their income over the last four years, but with a renewed confidence, they began to create beers. Recalling a 2005 visit to Corsica where Gabriele worked with a man on a chestnut beer, Gabriele made the Strada S. Felice. His dad wanted a honey beer so the Melissa was developed.  With awards coming in and the buzz about their beer accolades making their rounds throughout Italy, the pub became a pilgrimage for the new Italian and international craft beer drinking public. Grado Plato would not struggle again, in fact, it would expand to an off location brewery, hire a fulltime staff to work the bar so that Gabriele could do what destiny had already met for him—brew.  

To find who Teo Musso is, you’ll have to step into his three-ring circus.

The Ring Leader

The most famous name in the Italian craft beer movement is Teo Musso, hands down. Teo began as a pub owner importing beer to his little circus-tent-of-a-bar in the tiny country town of Piozzo, a blip smack in the middle of the most famous wine country in the world where Barolo and Barbaresco grow just over the hills. For Teo the beer adventure began as a revolt against his father who forced the local piedmont wines upon him. To rebel the teenager drank beer. But the true breakthrough was during a visit with his uncle who was head pastry chef at the Hotel De Paris in Monte Carlo where Teo discovers Chimay Blue, igniting a passion in Teo that still runs hot.

A restless and creative soul, Teo began by opening an incredible little gem in 1986 called Le Baladin which means story teller in French. The structure of Le Baladin is built like a small circus tent with circus posters, lights, décor and colors all reminiscent of the Barnum and Bailey circus. In the mini-big tent Teo features 200 labels of various European beers.

With a deeper curiosity to know beer, Teo goes to Belgium where he works at the Brasserie D’Achouffe and learns the art of brewing. He collaborates with Jean-Louis Dits of Brasserie Vapeur and realizes his talent—beer making.

Upon his return to Piozzo, Teo, with the help of Jean-Luis Dits, adapts tanks used for the processing milk into beer vats. He then opens the doors to a new brewpub, Baladin, now not just a circus beer bit, but the launching point for what is to become the Italian craft beer movement.

Just an hour or so away, unknown to Teo, Agostino Arioli, Lambrate, Beba and another location in Cremona now closed, are also germinating the wert of a new movement, but Teo will turn it into the ‘the greatest movement on earth’.

Step right up Folks

With the change to his little circus pub, his customers flee. Italians have not experienced such a thing as ‘craft beer’. Teo realizes Italians are not going to come to his circus, so he takes the show on the road by bottling his beers. He approaches Italy’s largest wine distributor who are convinced by the irrepressible Teo. To Teo, reaching out means planting his beers among the wines. He sets out by designing beer bottles and beers that will mimic, but not pretend to be, wine. In a way, this will allow the Italian drinker to be a bit more accepting of the foreign invader at their tables. He sends his new creations, Super and Isaac to 500 restaurants all over Italy. He designs glasses that allow for the beers to express themselves best and also sit seamlessly at a table and look like wine glasses, but making sure that the two are never confused.

But his beers aren’t making their mark. Hard pressed to replace the wine, Teo’s beers aren’t reaching the consumers; rather, they are being drunk by the restaurant staff.

So Teo opens his own restaurant, Casa Baladin in 2007 which in 2013 earns three glasses from the prestigious Gambero Rosso, the first beer-pairing restaurant in Italy to earn such a prestigious award. Casa Baladin is only one of many restaurants Teo will open, the most famous being Open Baladin in Rome in collaboration with Del Borgo brewer, Leonardo Di Vincenzo featuring 40 Italian craft beers on tap. In all, Teo opens Open Baladin Cinzano, Baladin Café Cuneo, Petit Baladin Torino, Bottega Baladin, Ryad Baladin in Morocco, Birreria Rome in collaboration with Oscar Farinetti in the famous Manhattan Eataly, NO.AU and a huge cellar to barrel age in collaboration with 30 of the top wine makers in Italy. His cellar is not limited to wine barrels though; he also uses rum barrels and in one case utilizes Kentucky tobacco for tannins. He invents a table tap, the Spillatore, so kegged beers can be enjoyed at tableside from a small tap at the table. If all that and a glass weren’t enough, he creates a speaker to boot to fill all his locations with a rich sound as customers’ palates enjoy the smooth tastes of Baladin beers.

But in the meantime, Teo sets off on a course to create a total Italian beer. He sows the fields of Piozzo with barely, hops and finds his own strain of yeast to create the true, all Italian beer Nazionale brewed completely without the use of hops.

He designs corks and utilizes a shellac of organic resin produced by a small insect, Kerria Lacquer from the forests of Assam and Thailand also used in restoration, polishing and in the maintenance of antique or vintage pieces to coat the rough corks as they are slid into the bottles.

He designs bottle tops that seal the beer. He creates bottle caps sensitive to temperature. He tests his caps against a stove so that, should the bottle reach a high temperature, the top will pop. In this way, he can be assured that if a consumer leaves the beer in the sun, the beer will ‘self-destruct’.

In the end, Teo’s big show covers an area of 2,600 square meters with an annual output of about 12,000 hectoliters of some 30 types of beers distributed by his own distribution company. He is also the first totally independent craft brewery in the world.  

This, my friends is the fast and short of the great Teo Musso. So on your next trip to Italy, step right up, folks and enjoy the greatest beer show in Italy and perhaps on Earth.