Now Drinking: Birra del Borgo Castagnale

There's not much to add to this video, to be honest. Unusually for me, I sort of stay on message, cover all the points, and say what I set out to say. Maybe the only other thing to add from a tasting point of view is that the beer has a nice classic English hop character that comes through in late the finish. I was too busy wagging my tongue to pick it up while making the video.

Founder of Birra del Borgo Leonardo Di Vincenzo popped into the shop last week, along with Brooks Carretta, who is currently brewing at Birra del Borgo, but will shortly be heading off to oversee the brewing operations at the New York outpost of the Eataly group. It was a bit of a surprise to see them, to say the least. Obviously, they hadn't just got on a train to come and see me - they were in Leeds visiting Vertical Drinks, the UK importer of Birra del Borgo, Le Baladin and Gradisca beers.

I always get a bit overawed meeting brewers whose beers I like. I feel compelled to pump them for technical information about their beers, which is a crappy conversational technique because (a) the information is interesting to me, but perhaps useless outside of the context of my brain, and (b) I'm sure they'd rather talk about something other than work.

In the course of a conversation lubricated by Marble Tawny and BrewDog-Mikkeller Devine Rebel Mortlach Reserve, we chatted about the recent collaborative brew between Leonardo, Teo Musso and Sam Calagione (a shade too much wild thyme, apparently), techniques for making easy drinking session ales (if you're going for something low %abv and delicate, you can think about missing out the first hop addition all together) and late hopping techniques (I asked if they added hops after 'flame out' - 'sure, to the whirlpool. About a ton' was Brooks' laconic reply).

Anyway, Brooks and Leonardo were in the UK to do a brew of Castagnale (4.2%abv) at Everards. It will feature as part of the JD Wetherspoon's winter ale festival (website here), which has an interesting line-up of beers - plenty of trad, and a decent smattering of one-offs. And it will be coming to pub near you (if you live in the UK).

Bir & Fud, Rome

This post is non-sequential, in that I ate at Bir & Fud the first night I was in Rome. Seated at the table are Leo di Vincenzo and Sam Calagione, apparently have an animated discussion over a jar of smoked humous. The rest of the diners are some of the Discovery channel team who were filming Sam. The guy opposite me at dinner was a definite convert to the craft beer cause. In fact, the whole crew had moved from drinking domestic industrial lager to drinking craft beer since the start of the project. Characteristically for recent converts, they couldn't believe how much of their life they had wasted drinking ordinary boring beer. So if you haven't made the change yet, think on.

If you've read the previous few posts, you'll already know that I'm quite smitten with Rome. The pizzas in Bir & Fud are proper wood-fired fellows, very slightly charred and blistered from the oven that you can see behind Leo. The food is great, the beer selection is great, and the staff are friendly and knowledgeable. Of course, sitting with a couple of world-class brewers undoubtedly helps in the service stakes, but even so, the place was packed full of happy diners. And on reflection, in a place with a beer list like this, I'd be perfectly happy if it took a little longer than expected to get my food - that leaves plenty of time for another beer.

Bar Open Baladin, Rome.

Spurred on by Knut Albert's pronouncement that Italy is the New California, I find myself having a hell of a time in Rome. Yesterday saw a trip out to Birra del Borgo, about an hour from Rome. That was quite an eye-opener in itself, and will be the subject of a couple of posts in the near future. But last night was a corker - Leonardo di Vincenzo and I met up with Sam Calagione (of Dogfish Head), and his Discovery channel entourage. He's being shadowed for a month for a forthcoming documentary, which having spent an evening in Sam's company, should be a riot.

We met up at Bar Open Baladin for draughts of My Antonia, a collaborative brew between Sam and Leo, before moving on to Bir&Fud for great pizzas and more beer. I think everyone was too scared to order anything but My Antonia, which was fine by me, as it's a great beer, with the herbal, lemony Saaz character coming to the fore much more in the draught version than the bottle. Ruinously drinkable, we drank it until we, like Rome, were partial ruins.

Here's a quick snippet of video from Bar Open Baladin. Don't be so impressed by the huge wall of beers that you miss the fact that there are 38 taps and a couple of handpumps on the bar too.



Must dash - more pizza and beer for lunch. Ciao ciao!