Welcoming sign at Pub 27 in Pompeii
B2O Grodziskie from Beer Shop Venice, Italy
Date: October 4 , 2018
The Story— Michele welcomed us with a free sample of the draft of the day and challenged us to name the ingredients for a full glass. Our ability to name not only the ingredients but the style set up a great visit,
Grodziskie beers, Polish smoked low alcohol beers, disappeared from the earth decades ago. They’ve made a minor comeback as brewers search desperately to produce something that isn’t being done by all of the 15 other breweries within a 10 minute drive of their taproom. We tasted B2O’s version in Venice’s Beer Shop, a small store that has helped enormously in changing Venice from a good city to drink beer into a very good one. It was their “mystery beer of the day”– identify the key ingredient and you get a free draft of it. We knew the style well enough to spot the style and the ingredient (albeit stumbling seriously on the pronunciation) and that was our ticket to a couple of hours of great beer conversation, swapping beers stories and books and learning much that we didn’t know about the Italian beer scene. The place is packed with interesting beers; we still so deeply regret that our suitcase was already full….
>>> Grodziskie is a style that can get as edgy as Berliner Weisse – some of the half dozen we’ve had were hard to finish– but this was one of the two best we’ve ever had. (description above). We were grateful for more.
>>>Some of the early examples from 5 years ago were interesting but profoundly un-moreish. We wondered how populations would tolerate something as acidic. We think this interpretation is entirely credible as something a village would celebrate a few centuries ago.>>>Beer Shop Venice is a short stroll from the Rialto Bridge and just a block or two from the Devil’s Forest Pub, probably the best of the tourist area’s watering holes. It’s new and we found it essentially by mistake when we were wandering around the neighborhood.
>>>Parenthetically, the only other example that matches this in our experience comes from a relatively obscure but most enjoyable brew pub in Conyngham Pennsylvania. Smoke in both of these is restrained and the pale malt is allowed to make the experience pleasant. Conyingham Brewing, by the way, is worth the short detour from I81, almost half way between Harrisburg and Scranton. There are motels only a couple of miles from the brewery and you might need them.
The Beer— Very soft – almost creamy despite the 3.2% Soft fruit, slightly salty with some on a leash and an end of gentle pineapple tang.
Value — Well, for us it was unmatched — we drank on it for the price of knowledge. Definitely a good deal. In general Beer Shop’s prices are quite fair in the context of the Italian beer market. You’d pay much more for the beers he carries back in the states — if you could find them.
All this week we feature HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE 2018– 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.
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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