Before the recent holidays, my attention was caught by an interesting article published on blogs Top Fermented, in which the author reflects on the concept of Gateway Beer. This term refers to an ideal beer, able to take a drinker through the boundary line between the world of industrial lager and the more exciting craft beer one. According to this theory, a particular beer would mark the experience of every beer lover: after years of drinking only industrial beer, we would suddenly come across an unusual production, which would have opened the doors of the craft beer world. It’s a common path to almost all the beer lovers, but the question is: is there really a Gateway Beer?
Jan
14
'10On the concept of “Gateway Beer”
Dec
9
'09Beer and innovation: a ticklish subject
Last week the most important beer blogs around the world dealt with a very interesting topic: innovation in beer. The subject has been raised by Ron Pattison on his Shut up about Barclay Perkins, where he hurled himself towards the concept of innovation connected to beers. These are some passages from his post:
I’ll be honest with you. I don’t want innovative beer. I want tasty, refreshing beer. Beer I want to drink more than a mouthful of. Beer that’s a joy to drink rather than an exercise in endurance. I don’t want to think “what a clever brewer, how ever did he come up with adding a slight apricot flavour to a Pale Ale?”. […]I want something to drink, something that lifts my spirits and makes my heart soar. And, in sufficient quantities, will get me pissed. It’s really not complicated.
Nov
18
'09Ok, let’s talk about prices…
Inspired by the news of the 12 liters bottles of “Vieille of Bon Secours” sold in London for 700£, we had on last Friday one of the most interesting off-topic discussion of the Italian version of this blog: an a debate on craft beer prices in Italy.
I immediately want to make clear that in these lines you won’t find a solution to the problem, neither an analysis that finally clarify the reason for so elevated prices. For similar conclusions it would be necessary to carry out a serious investigation, since so many times we tried to unravel the skein without getting satisfactory results. It is not what I intend to do with this post. I will just write some remarks to reflect on, inspired me from so many comments read in these days. Hope these would be inspiring for you too, in order to have a useful debate on this fundamental topic.
Sep
30
'09Each beer has its own glass, haven’t you forgotten?
In recent days I happened to discuss with my friend Lorenzo about a rather delicate matter. Chatting about many topics we ended up discussing a habit increasingly popular with the locals, at least those of Rome: to propose a sole and only “measure” for the quantity of beer, often served in glasses quite different from the ones that should be employed. This considerations came out talking about the new Open Baladin bar where all the 40 beers on draft are served 33cl in the “Roman Pint” (miniature version of the English one) or in the now famous Teku glass. Both glasses are very good to taste some beers, but really not fit some others.
Mar
26
'09The importance of the label in a beer
Yesterday I was reading on Birragenda the impressions of Maurizio Maestrelli about Italia Beer Festival of the last week. Aside from considerations about the event, I was caught – and reading the comments I was not the only – on a brief digression on the labels of new born brewery Toccalmatto:
To my taste, are among the most beautiful and funny appeared in public for a long time now. Congratulations indeed to the whole team!
