Welcoming sign at Pub 27 in Pompeii
Baladin Fico Fabbrica Italiano Contadina, Piozzi, Italy
Date: October 15, 2018
The Story— Baladin was one of the first Italian breweries to show the world that Italians had truly joined the world craft movement. Their success helped propel hundreds of other hopefuls, only some of which have matched the daring and quality of this innovator. Starting as a small brewpub in a small village, they’ve expanded enough to send beer all over Europe and to many markets in the US.
>>Their pubs pour Baladin beers in most of the major Italian cities from Rome to Bologna, but outside Bologna they have an outlet that not only serves Baladin beers, but brews a few as well. Tomorrow we’ll talk about the quite good beer they brew on premise but today we’re highlighting the beer you can get at almost all of the many beer stands, food stalls and restaurants in this “largest food park in the world,”
>> FICO Italy World is, they say, the world’s largest agri-business park- a multi acre food court with demonstrations, classes, museum displays and at least 40 restaurants and a couple of dedicated beer bars. The brewpub there is a small operation, brewing competent beers in limited quantities. This Disneyland for food, however is built to handle millions of customers a year (they haven’t come yet), so the universally available park themed beer has to come in from the mother brewery in Piozzi.
We’ll have more to say about this unusual food and drink destination — big enough so that many of the customers there choose to shop in the provided-for-free three wheel bicycles (but not nearly as easy to operate as they look). It’s an amazing place and we don’t regret for a moment the day we spent there – or the fact that this “tourist destination” brought us to Bologna, which turned out to be one of our favorite Italian cities ever
The Beer— The Fico Fabbrica Italiano Contadina lager carries the name of the establishment and is brewed to appeal to the average shopper — it would be a mass market beer in another context, but an exceptionally good one. We’re not convinced of it’s lager pedigree. Rich and fruity golden ale-like lager with an apricot and hop bitter aftertaste. A range of soft fruits – orange- orange peel along the way. Easy drinking for 6%, No wonder they sell truckloads and have to bring this in from their main brewery.
Value — Good to very good. Seven bucks is a lot for a pint of beer in most European contexts, but really — an above average beer for Bologna for a below average cost in Bologna was pretty nice to encounter.
This week we return to HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE– Surprisingly good beer in “bad beer cities.” The best we’ve found in researching our next book – a guide to great beer in European tourist cities. (Planned publication 2019.) We’ll shift back to great American beer finds next week.
Next week we return to the US to highlight some great beers we’ve found in researching out first US Beer publication: Brews and Snooze-– Breweries you can visit and walk back to a fine place to spend the night. Look for it in 2019.
About these posts: We taste and evaluate over a thousand beers every year. The beers posted here rank in the top quarter of those tastings. Values: “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.
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