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In the craft area at the recent Pianeta Birra fair held in Rimini, there was a big yellow stand, furnished in an original way (there was even an area for live music) with a name never heard before: Bad Attitude. I did not realize it was a brave new craft beer venture and like many others, I didn’t care about them since Manuele Colonna pointed me out that at the stand there was Lorenzo Bottoni - old acquaintance of mine related to Piccolo Birrificio di Apricale – and that detail was enough to draw my attention. I never imagined that I was going to discover the most interesting news of the whole event.

Bad Attitude is the mark of a canned craft beer, which will be launched on the market soon. In the title of this post I used quotation marks to identify their nationality because formally Bad Attitude is Swiss: it is produced at the plant of the Birrificio Ticinese, located in Stabio, a small town in the Ticino canton. However, for cultural reasons and for geographical proximity we can consider it an Italian beer in every respect.

Obviously the most original of Bad Attitude is the use of cans. The idea of using this vessel is essential to the project, is its identification mark. As the name suggests, the Bad Attitude wants to be innovative, explosive, politically incorrect – at least towards the dynamics that characterize the craft and specialty beer world. Bad Attitude will seek to overturn the conception of Italian craft beer as a product of elite, a complement to the wine in wine shops and restaurants.

Among the many self-proclaimed good beers we decided to propose ourselves as we are. [...] We feel quite uneasy in the rhetorical brewing scenario and we seek originality in the choices we make.

There is evidently a big untapped market share, made up of those who love to drink a beer without loading it with more or less high-flown connotations. Bad Attitude is aiming to this segment and the can is the tool they’re going to use to access it. Many American breweries are revaluating the aluminum container, traditionally associated only with poor-quality products because of its problem in maintaining the quality of the content. Bad Attitude therefore takes its cue from this new wave, but the inspiration from the U.S. is also found in communication.

A great communication, bluntly. The cans are beautiful, the logo is attractive, in a modern and charming style. Everything else is done with such class that it’s hard to believe that we are talking about an Italian craft beer. The details make the difference: the brochure, designed as the booklet of a CD, with constant references to art and music culture of the United States, or even the space for live music at the stand at Pianeta Birra, used to strengthen through music the message related to the product.

The beers brewed under the trademark Bad Attitude are two and even their style is a tribute to American culture. The Hobo is introduced as a Double IPA, but I think it is very little double and so much IPA. That’s not a problem indeed. It’s conceived as a session beer, “for not requiring too much knowledge, to be drunk in the evening street wandering.” It’s brewed with five malts, rye (27%) and wheat (10%), American (Amarillo and Cascade) and New Zealand (Nelson Sauvin) hops.

The second beer, which I found really nice is the Bootlegger, a pleasantly hopped Steam Beer.Brewed with a small quantity of wheat and Amarillo, Perle and East Kent Golding hops, fermented with lager yeast at an unusual higher temperature (25° C). A second fermentation takes place in tank before packaging. As for the Hobo, the Bootlegger undergoes light filtering, which eliminates residuals and ensure a satisfactory shelf life.

As you may understood, this is a brave project, which can only be successful if it will be able to reverse the expectations of the average consumer towards craft beer. In this attempt, the price of course will play a major role: if proposed at a reasonable price, the Bad Attitude can really break through. On the contrary, it run the risk of being a resounding flop. There’s base for a big success, we can only wait for their next steps to see what surprises the future holds. If you want to know more, see the Bad Attitude website, where you could also find the beautiful movie I attached below. Good luck to this brave project!