2023 Author: Cody Thornton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 11:20
Can we say paraculata? There is no other way to describe the video “The reasons for a choice“, posted by Beer of the Borgo on your Facebook page.
A live response, visible to all but aimed above all at hop nerds who are already fans of the legendary ReAle beer, now soured as if overdosed by Lambic.
For once it is difficult to blame socialist champagnes (English version of radical chic, but beer socialist was better): with the sale from the Lazio brewery to the largest beer producer in the world, Anheuser-Busch Ab Inbev (the same as the Corona and Beck's, to understand each other), Leonardo di Vincenzo remain with zero stakes on their creatures, swollen pockets and the role of CEO.
His image changes from a spiritual guide of our local master brewers to a guru of compromise, who being this way will have his work cut out in maintaining a modicum of quality and experimentation associated with the Lazio brand.
Since he is a man of the world and knows how certain things go, he runs for cover with the reputation-saving video that, no offense, I miss Grom (yes, the one bought by Unilever).
He appears disheartened but steadfast among his beloved crush systems, seated in the center, frontman among the crew members with his head down on stage. A still image is enough to understand the content of 36 minutes of speech: “I know, you are angry. But I can explain to you: it was inevitable “.
He, himself, until yesterday champion of the small but beautiful, talks as if nothing were to "join forces with Inbev", which is like sleeping with the enemy.
In the video you can read the questions of the brewers like at a Sanremo Dopofestival.
There is disappointment but the leader maximo feeds a shred of hope that everything will remain as before, and invites an uncertain follower to remain so with words of great wisdom: "Our company operates in Italy, so by law, taxes must be paid in Italy ".
Trying not to be overwhelmed by discouragement, someone asks: "but did the people of InBev understand your way of making beer? ". In short, will they respect you, or will they put Sunday afternoon beers in the cauldron? And Leonardo replies that yes, their specificity is appreciated and will be supported. Direction, says thaumaturgical, is creativity and not super-production.
The video put together 14,000 views (counting only the brewery's social page) and the shift of the topic to a new type of heroism: staying good even if you are no longer independent.
But the doubts remain, as the readers of the true Chronicle of beer explain without any intellectual frills: "I didn't subscribe to Mediaset after SKY lost the Champions League, imagine if I go to give money to Berlusca … so I won't buy Birra del Borgo again. ".
Indeed, let's be clear: for some Di Vincenzo is a traitor. A long and bloody deserter war between multinationals and small producers, a corrupt partisan.
A few days ago, speaking with Gambero Rosso, Jean Hummler of Moeder Lambic, the temple of craft beer in Brussels, thundered that this is just the beginning.
Speaking of the failed identity of the Belgian breweries that the industry has bought, he predicted that the same will happen to Birra del Borgo. The production will probably not remain where it is now, in Borgorose, the village in the province of Rieti on the border with Abruzzo where the former microbrewery Birra del Borgo was founded in 2005.
Maybe it will be moved to Leuven in Belgium. More likely in Ukraine, where it costs less to produce. Because obviously, for those who make billions of hectoliters, saving even a cent per liter really helps.
Ask a craft brewer how much a penny more or less counts to produce his creature. Nothing, he will answer you with some emphasis, what matters is the quality.
Leonardo Di Vincenzo, however, has a plausible explanation. Debts have put him "in check". Now he can go back to doing his job with serenity.
And out of controversy, as long as the Birra del Borgo is not really distorted why should we stop drinking it?
Finally, if you notice on the Birra del Borgo website the wording "craft beer" still appears: who knows if it will still be like this afterwards.
In Italy, a law has recently been approved that I quote in excerpts: "Craft beer is defined as beer produced by small independent breweries (…) for small independent brewery we mean a brewery that is legally and economically independent from any other brewery".
Dommage, as they would say in Belgium.