From the high Alps to Sicily, craft beer in Italy is booming with 900 small breweries

The world-wide beer revolution has taken Italy by storm. There are now 900 breweries in the country, the number will soon hit 1,000 and there’s no sign of it stopping there.

Many of the breweries are tiny and some are based in bars. But the likes of Baladin in Piedmont and Lambrate in Milan are growing fast and becoming major players on the beer scene. Brewing is not confined to big cities but takes place in the mountainous Dolomites and as far south as Naples and Sicily: there are between 10 and 15 breweries in Sicily.

Italian artisan beer was in vibrant form at Fermentazioni, a three-day festival in Rome attended by 15,000 exuberant and mainly young drinkers. It’s the third such annual festival and 34 breweries from all over the country (including Sardinia, above) supplied beers that ranged in style from pale and golden ales to midnight black export stouts.

The festival is supported by Slow Food, an influential movement in Italy that believes good food and drink should be made with the finest raw materials and allowed to develop naturally without the aid of artificial chemicals and stabilisers. Slow Food produces an annual Guida alle Birre d’Italia, edited by Luca Giaccone and Eugenio Signoroni, which lists all the breweries and beers in the country.

Andrea Turco, who organises Fermentazioni, is an  IT programmer in Rome who caught the beer bug 15 years ago when he tasted German imports and realised there was more to beer than Moretti and Peroni.

“The concept of ‘good beer’ was strange at first,” he says. “Italians love taste in their food and wine. But we have no brewing history, no roots. Back in 1996 there were just three craft breweries, Italiana, Baladin and Lambrate. Within 10 years, there were 100 breweries.”

Andrea created a group of kindred spirits -- home brewers and beer lovers – to promote good beer and in 2006 he started a blog about new Italian breweries, events, bars with good beer and trends in the industry. He teamed up with the renowned Lorenzo Dabove, the great champion of Italian craft beer, to organise beer tastings.

From those early stirrings came Italian Craft Beer Week in March, now in its sixth year, during which some 600 bars in Italy stage special events. And then came Fermentazioni.

“Rome is the centre of the craft beer movement,” Andrea says. “Pubs, shops, wine cellars, even bread shops now sell good beer.  Beer and food matching is important when you consider the Italian love of food.”

Most of the Italian breweries are very small but Baladin now produces 10,000 hectolitres a year. The brewery, which is experimenting with ageing beer in oak, uses both barley and hops grown in the north of the country. Free Lions in Tuscany is another brewery that uses only home-grown ingredients. With their close relationship with Slow Food, craft brewers attempt to source raw materials from Italy wherever possible – but one brewer told me loves English Maris Otter malt and imports it for his beers.

With the lack of an Italian beer culture, brewers look abroad for inspiration. The main influences, Andrea says, are Belgium, Britain, Germany and the United States. A two-hour talk and tasting I conducted at Fermentazioni with Eugenio Signoroni was on the subject of India Pale Ale (IPA) with beers from Britain, the U.S. and Italy.

The growth of artisan brewing in Italy is all the more remarkable when you consider brewers have none of the tax advantages enjoyed by small brewers in other European countries. There is no equivalent of Britain’s Progressive Beer Duty that gives tax relief to smaller producers. On the contrary: the Italian government has increased beer duty by 30 per cent over the past two years and there’s no difference in duty levels between Peroni (owned by SABMiller), Moretti (part of Heineken) and craft brewers.

Fermentazioni takes place in a former textile factory close to the Olympic Stadium in the Lazio region of Rome. On the first evening of the festival I met Sergio Daniele, the lay representative of the Tre Fontane monastery in the city that earlier this year started to brew beer after a break of many centuries. The monastery is more than 1,000 years old and its name – Three Fountains – stems from a fable that says when St Paul died three fountains spontaneously burst from the ground.

The monastery, one of the oldest places in the Christian world, was originally controlled by members of the Benedictine order but the abbey was suppressed during the Napoleonic period. It was reopened by Trappists who restored brewing this year. The monks say they found a recipe dating from the 19^th century though in true Trappist style they won’t reveal the details.

But they do say they add eucalyptus to the beer as the plant grows in the grounds of the monastery. The beer is a golden 8.5 per cent Tripel – clearly inspired by Westmalle in Belgium – and Sergio says the eucalyptus, which is good for fighting malaria, is added at the end of the kettle boil with hops. It adds a delicious spicy and herbal note to a beer rich in malt and hop depths.

The monks brew just 1,000 hectolitres a year and most of the beer is consumed by their community, pilgrims and visitors. It’s the smallest Trappist brewery in the world and has been accepted into membership of the International Trappist Association.

In spite of high levels of duty, beer prices in bars in Rome are remarkably good value when compared to London. At Open Baladin, Via Degli Specchi, there are 40 taps serving beers that, regardless of strength, cost 5 euro a glass. It’s one of a growing number of bars run by Baladin in major cities. The eclectic range includes sour, saison, golden, porter, stout and barley wine. Don’t miss the rich, heady Xygayu, a 13.5 per cent beer aged in rum casks that I first sampled at the Great British Beer Festival in 2014 during a talk by Lorenzo Dabove.

In sharp contrast, No Au, 17 Piazza Montevecchio, near Piazza Navona, is a small bar that specialises in craft beer, organic wines and tasty food. The handful of taps includes three British beer engines. Cantillon lambic is usually available, along with Baladin and Borgo della Birra.

Via Benedetta, on the opposite bank of the Tiber to Open Baladin, is a short, narrow street but it offers two sharply contrasting bars. Bir & Fud at No 25, run by local restaurateur Manuele Colonna, is spacious and revered for the range and quality of the pizzas served in the restaurant.

Opposite at No 23, Ma Che Siete Venuti a Fa’, is a large hole in the wall with a few seats and a bar staggering under the weight of 13 taps. The name means in Roman dialect “What the **** are you doing here?” The answer is goggling almost in disbelief at a beer range that includes Oud Beersel Lambeek, Brewfist Son of a Gun, Kees IPA, Grapefruit IPA and oak-aged imperial stout, Loverbeer Beerbera, Lambrate Imperial Ghisa, Weihenstephaner Vitus and Knobslauch unfiltered lager.

A narrow passage leads to a back room with more seating and cabinets with displays of bottled beers from around the world.

Bir & Fud has seats on the pavement and a large bar (below) offering up to 30 beers. The restaurant at the rear proves its beer credentials with a chalked depiction of the brewing process on one wall.

The pizzas are superb and are matched with a beer list that includes Real Ale Extra from Birra del Borgo with a herbal and spicy aroma and palate. Other beers include Haberstumpf Zwickel Pils, Troll Patela, Amiata Bastarda Rossa, Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale, Brewfist Spaceman, Dell’Aspida Stout and Strong Belgian Ale, De Struise Pannepot and three beers from England: Moor Raw and Simplicity from Bristol and Wild Beer Rubus Maximus from Somerset.

The beer scene in Rome is stupendous in its range and diversity. And if you are delayed at the airport where the choice [sic] is a bottle of Moretti, you will appreciate with even greater fervour the beery pleasures of the Eternal City.