State of the Birra Report
By Mark Tumarkin

<editor's note>
Following is a report on the Micros and homebrewing scene in Italy. This is from a post to the HBD by an Italian homebrewer named Max Farragi. 
</editor's note>

Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 01:31:03 +0200
From: Rosalba e Massimo 
Subject: Beer and Homebrewing in Italy

Hi

Since I received quite a few requests, I'm writing here something more
about homebrewing in Italy.
For a comparison, you can see my old posts to HBD in 1996 (2195), 1997
(2574) and 1998 (2894)

Let's start with microbreweries, since the story has many connection
with the development of italian homebrewing.
(see also my last post on HBD 3908)
The number of micros is always increasing, but not at the exponential
rate of the previous years, when the number increased from almost zero
to over sixty. Now the growth is slower but steady, there are about
70-80 micros, and in the last year maybe 12-15 opened and a handful
closed. 
What is growing even more is the interest of media, consumer and also
the appreciation from abroad. The best breweries are always organizing
tasting and events, and having success at such events as GBBF. What I
see is: the best microbreweries (that is, producing the best beers) are
also the ones more active in promoting craft beer in many ways. Also,
with a few exception, the oldest ones (which opened before brewpub and
micros started to be "trendy") are still the best: Baladin, Lambrate,
Birrificio Italiano are among these. Centrale della Birra and Beba are
not at the same level, but they are always trying to improve, and
working hard both on their beers and on the general promotion.
A newer very good micro is Cittavecchia, almost the same level of the
best three. These 6 are the breweries featured at London GBBFs.
Among the other, a few are brewing good beers and I understand that
anyway these are driven not only by commercial targets, but also by the
passion of craft-brewing. Some other brewpubs are sufficient to good,
but other are just trendy spots that brew only becasuse it is "fashion"
or because it saves them costs.

Homebrewing in Italy is also growing, possibly even more, both in
quality and in quantity. I don't want to seem presumptuous, but in these
years I've been among the most active promoting homebrewing in Italy.
Probably, in italian HB spreading, one of the key factors has been
Internet; first my site (and then other sites, a few of them - I admit -
quite more detailed!) and then expecially the usenet newsgroup
it.hobby.birra: these helped quite a lot the diffusion of homebrewing
and also of "beer culture". 
The discussions and debates on the NG improved the knowledge, but not
only, they triggered many important "real life" events: starting from
simple "fun" meeting of the people writing on the newsgroup, developing
into tastings, conferences and even competitions.
The connection with the microbreweries movement is also important. To
start, the preferred place of the HB meetings were (and are) the best
known brewpubs. Here we taste the last experiments of the brewer (and
comments on them), and on our turn we bring our bottles and ask the
opinion of the "professionals". Also, events and competions are all
hosted in these brewpubs.
Another example of this relationship is Unionbirrai. This association
started as a federation of the italian micros and brewpubs (at least,
the ones interested in the cooperation and promotion - BTW, the best
ones including the ones I mentioned before). Later, the association
changed its rules, in order to become also a "consumer association", so
it was included in the EBCU conference along CAMRA and others. At the
same time, the composition of the Steering Committe has been changed, in
order to include 4 professional brewers and 4 "amateurs": these last are
all homebrewers (including myself). 
So, we always try to handle the promotion (and the problems) of
microbreweries and homebreweries as a whole, as far as possible.
The role of US homebrewing has also been important: for example, I know
many italian homebrewers (including a few friends of mine) are lurking
this list (hi Pietro). Recently, a few willing guys have started
translating into italian a lot of US articles (mainly from Brew Your Own
magazine) and all the BJCP stuff (in both case with the agreement of the
original authors) and I know that, in turn, an article written by one of
these italian hbrewers has been featured in the BYO magazine.
What else? HB equipments and ingredients: we have basically only one
main source in Italy: a good HB shop that for the most part does mail
orders, but is also a retail shop and an importer-distributor. The
range, maybe, does not match the best US HB shops, but is nevertheless
good: for example, quite a lot of different grains from UK, Germany,
Belgium; a bit less good on hops; and the whole range of Wyeast. All is
quite fresh (once I bought a liquid yeast that was produced by Wyeast
just a week before!). 
What about the level of brewing? Judging form the newsgroup and the
events, it seems that most homebrewers are all-grain brewers (like
myself), with a small part of extract+grains and some "KITs" (hopped
extracts). But surely it is a distorted view, since the most advanced
brewers are also the ones most willing to partecipate in the homebrewing
life and discussions. Kit, anyway, are easily available not only in the
above mentioned shop but also in many other shops.
So, you can count italian "kit" homebrewers in the thousands (maybe many
thousands), and all-grain brewers maybe still in the hundreds.

A few words on the competions.. surely the "hottest" news in Italian
homebrewing. 
We had three of them, witrh a fourth soon to come: at the moment, we
manage to have a winter and a summer competition. Despite being
"national events" - and only two each years - the attendance is on the
order of 30-35 entries.. that gives you the idea that numbers are still
small with respect to US. Well, you have to start somehow! 
Despite these small numbers, we have problems with finding enough good
judges, they are barely enough (we could put up two juries). We took
inspiration as much as possible from BJCP, both for the styles and the
score sheets for example. Still, there are a few problems and
controversial things to be cleared, and we had a few "hot" discussions
between us regarding subdivision of entries, and so on. 

So, I think I will soon post here a few questions about competition
organization, judging and so on... hope you will help us!

Hope you enjoyed this  (maybe too long) report

"max"
massimo faraggi - Genova -Italy

P.S. a few links:

www.unionbirrai.com (italian only)
site of the Unionbirrai association

www.hobbybirra.it (italian only)
reference site of italian beer newsgroup, and italian homebrewing. 
Hosts many personal beer sites.

it.hobby.birra (italian only, but most of us understand english if you
want to post questions)
italian newsgroup on beer (both homebrewing and beer appreciation)

www.maxbeer.org (my site, also english version)
italian micros addresses and reviews, homebrewing (not advanced... more
useful for italian beginners)

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