There is such a thing as Italian Real Ale!

An Italian friend of ours spent three months in England earlier this year on an exchange. She arrived hating beer (being from Italy, that's not all that surprising; look what shit they get served up. Plus, they have wine, which goes better with pasta ;-) ). She was open-minded enough to attend a few beer festivals with us, however, and seemed to be developing a taste for the less hoppy (and less lagery) real ales by the time she left. Imagine our pride when we received the following emailed report on the state of craft beer in her home town in Italy!

I looked forward to tell you that the craft beer bar eventually reopened, Birra Cerqua.

The venue is very small, so it gets crowded quickly, but there's space outside as well. The atmosphere is relaxed. The guys who work there are very friendly and easy-going, even too much perhaps late in the night! They invited us to attend I don't know which phase of brewing yesterday, but eventually we didn't go. Next time.

Four beers.

• My favourite is the porter, Porqua. It's dark and dense (but not so much), bland foam and a gentle bitter aftertaste. Nice taste of coffee. I drink it more because I like the genre, I think, than for the beer itself. Maybe it's not usual here as well, so difficult to find.
• Four hops (Citra, Cascade, Simcoe and Amarillo. It's a APA they say). A very pleasant and intense citrus scent but incredibly bitter. I can't drink it.
• The third is a blanche, it's the worst (with white pepper and Himalayan pink salt). I don't know, it reminds me when I was a child and spent the summer at my grandparents' farm... Smell of raw milk and a persistent aftertaste of barn.
• I don't remember the fourth.

The one they made yesterday is a brown ale, but we'll wait for a month at least. I'm curious!

They use the waste of the malt to make a focaccia, you would like it.