CulturAle Press

Elav Techno Double IPA Comun Nuovo, Italy, at Il Santo Bevitore, Venice

Date:  December 3, 2018

The Story—  We’ve said about all we know about Elav yesterday and on October 5, but a few more words on Il Santo Bevitore are in order.   Venice has a good beer scene.  We’ve refined our chapter on Venice in our book about supposed “bad beer cities” with each visit as new ventures slowly turn a wine culture into something more diverse.   We were told at a restaurant that “people in Venice don’t dink beer.”   We wonder whether the management ever sets foot outside their doors since a brewery outlet is only steps away.

Not only is there good beer in Venice, but with just a bit of effort you can put together a romantic and unforgettable pub crawl.   Start along Fondamenta dei Ormesini in Cannaregio; there are several pubs, some of them well above average and some excellent food choices as well.  But save time for

The Beer—  OK but heavy handed IPA overkill.  Clean big malt with hops to spare, but the load turns to sucrose and wanders in and out of fruited yogurt.

Value —  Good.   At nearly nine bucks for a US 14 ounce “pint,” it’s not a bargain.   But if you’re drinking beer in Venice there aren’t any real bargains– the best you can hope for is to be served a beer that’s worth the “too many Euros” you’ve forked over for it.   This one is

 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.

This week we feature HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE–  Some of the great beers we’ve found in our European travels. Some of these are the specific beers readers of Drinking In the Culture wanted us to include in that book.   A few may be some of the surprisingly good beer we’ve found in “bad beer cities”  as we researched our next book – a guide to great beer in European tourist cities. (Planned publication 2019.)

Next week we’ll return to the US and highlight some great American craft beers, some of which 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.

COMING LATER IN DECEMBER:   THE TEN BEST OF THE LAST FIVE YEARS.  We count down to the New Year by thinking back on some of the greatest beers we’ve found in the last five years of hunting.   These beers are in our top 0.2% of the beers we’ve tasted in those five years.