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Nicola Utzeri and Nicola Perra

In recent days Nicola Perra, Barley brewery founder and head brewer, has won the Brewer of the Year award held by online magazine Fermento Birra. The official awarding ceremony was held at the Open Baladin in Rome, during which it was possible to taste the beers of the Sardinian brewer paired with some seafood dishes. The evening was hosted by Kuaska, in the presence of Perra, Nicola Utzeri of Fermento Birra and lots of other friends.

We started with Friska, paired with an octopus, potatoes, smoked cheese and parsley salad. The Friska is an atypical Blanche, more structured and bodied than the classic Belgian models. It is traditionally brewed nevertheless, using wheat and a sharp spicing. Put simply a refreshing yet complex beer, an excellent thirst-quencher. A pretty interesting pairing, playing on both the contrast and the analogy: on one hand the citric note of the beer “cleaned” the smoked note of the cheese, while the pepper in the salad matched the Friska spiciness.

The second proposal was Zàgara, brewed with orange blossom honey. Many honey beers on the market are often “heavy” and too characterized. This is instead very delicate, elegant, with a persuasive fruity tone and a refined and persistent end. Characters that did not exactly matched the shrimp, avocado, orange and fennel cream with which was paired. It definitely kept up with the beer perfumes, but it was so tasty that overwhelmed the beer taste.

Later we had Tùvi Tùvi, the latest in Barley’s production, of which I spoke in the past. As promised, it is a easy to drink beer, but by no means trivial, mainly due to a complex and original hopping (the Polish Marynka is used).The pairing with a cold asparagus soup with croutons and mussels was not bad, although it did not appear particularly inspired.

The last beer was His Majesty BB10, the beer that made the brewery famous throughout Italy and beyond. It’s an Imperial Stout brewed with sapa (cooked must) of Cannonau grapes, always, as in this occasion, able to show all its magnificence. Andrea De Bellis, the chef, has succeeded in proposing a perfect pairing: a composition with a coffee jelly, cocoa crumble, water mousse, vanilla scented confit tomato, passion fruit, molasses and licorice. The result was an unprecedented meeting between beer and sweet, a perfect blend of flavors, so that – as noted by Kuaska – it was not clear where finished the beer and began the dish. Each distinctive feature of BB10 (chocolate, licorice, red fruits, vinous note) was revived by the sweet, managing to fuse the various flavors exalting the beer as its best.

At the end of the evening participants enjoyed one last creation of Nicola Perra, the BB Evò, brewed with Nasco grapes sapa. I was very curious to taste this beer, inspired – as the name itself suggests – to BB10. My expectations proved far too high and the BBEvò left me a little disappointed: this is an excellent beer, don’t get me wrong, but in my opinion doesn’t stand comparison with its elder sister, which I consider one of the best creations of Italian brewing. An ungenerous comparison? Probably, despite I should drink a lot of BBEvò.

The evening ended with chatter, laughter, a pint of “big ReAle” and an expedition in search of a night kebab house. Congratulations to Nicola for the award, the proper recognition to a passionate and creative brewer, but also marked by a commendable professionalism. His beers are there to prove it.