The Vinitaly 2024 coming soon, since tonight will close its doors, will also be remembered for the great novelty of the pavilion dedicated to craft beer from the agricultural industry, opened for the first time in the space of Veronafiere. The stand is that of X-cellent Beers: 800 square meters entirely dedicated to the beverage of Ceres, with breweries coming from all Italian regions that presented their products under the hat of the Italian Beer Consortium, the first nationwide production alliance between hops, cereals, malthouses and independent breweries. 

To make the lion’s share have been -and will be, for what remains of the fair in recent hours-, guided tastings of craft beers also combined with local products: in particular, attracts the space dedicated to pairing with pizza stuffed with flours from the Italian agricultural chain. Barley malts cultivated in the south and in central Italy, hops from Veneto, Abruzzo, Emilia Romagna, ancient grains from Liguria, Umbria, Campania and Sicily are mixed with local products such as Piedmont carnaroli rice, Garfagnana chestnut, Cilento figs and Sicilian oranges in over a thousand special beers to tell the richness and biodiversity of the Made in Italy tradition. 

The brassicolo tourism

In the space there has been talk and talk, moreover, of tourism brassicolo, a phenomenon in great expansion that affects a tourist on 5. The number of tourists who call themselves food and wine has increased from 21% in 2016 to 58% in 2023 with a growth of 37%: This is what emerges from the first survey of the Consortium of Italian craft beer spread on the occasion of Vinitaly where the Consortium in Hall I has gathered producers of excellence with 100% Italian beers to tell their territory in a glass.

In the last three years, despite the pandemic, almost one in five travellers has visited a brewery or attended a beer-related event. In particular, 21% of male tourists visited a brewery, while among the female population the percentage drops to 17%. What does a tourist expect during a visit to the brewery? Two thirds of the respondents considered it essential to combine beer produced on the farm with local dishes (65 % of the sample). 

During the event it was reiterated how beer tourism choose, preferably, farms. There are many, in fact, travelers who prefer to stop in one of the 2,500 farmhouses of Campagna Amica promoted by Terranostra, used as a starting point and then visit the local breweries.

Breweries open in 2024

In this sense, the Consorzio Birra Italiana, last August 2023, promoted a national event, Luppoleti Aperti 2023, to bring consumers and tourists closer to the agricultural chain of Italian craft beer: At Vinitaly 2024, the Consortium relaunched the event announcing the arrival of Birrifici Aperti, a national event promoting Italian agricultural breweries.

Biodiversity for craft beer

The biodiversity that characterizes the Italian craft beer, making it unique and appreciated all over the world, is in fact a heritage that must be protected starting from the raw materials that offer the territories - explains the Consortium, such as Biancolilla grains, Timilia, Saraolla, Risciola, Senator Cappelli, Perciasciacci and Russello: are just some of the varieties of cereals grown in Italy and used to produce beer or as the different varieties of hops that give different scents and scents to beer depending on the place of cultivation, from floral to herbaceous scent rather than tropical fruit aroma. 

"To enrich the Italian productions -explains the Consortium- we find the richness of our territory: carobs, tangerine peel of Ciaculli or lemon of Sorrento, figs of Cilento, myrtle of Sardinia, Pompia sarda, chestnuts of the Apennines, hemp and other ingredients that the artisans of the national beer have chosen to tell their territory". 

The craft beer business

"The Italian craft beer industry counts, in fact, 1,182 productive activities throughout the national territory that, from the field to the table, employ about 93,000 people, for a beverage whose consumptions are destined this year to exceed the historical record of approximately 38 liters per capita for a total -adds the Consortium- of 2,2 billion liters generating a volume of turnover that, considering all the productions, is worth 9,5 billion Euros". 

"The experts of the Consortium continue to be the driving force: craft beers made with the use of special ingredients, not pasteurization nor microfiltered to enhance the naturalness of a product appreciated by all age groups, with young people who are increasingly looking for quality tasting more than quantity. 2 out of 3 jugs filled with national productions, according to the Consortium of Italian beer, born with the support of Coldiretti to represent the best of the artisanal productions of the peninsula". 

New professional figures related to beer

"New professional figures are also being created -add the experts- such as the 'professional beer taster' who knows the historical fundamentals of the various styles of beers and is able to interpret them, through observation and tasting techniques, the main characters of style, taste, composition, color, body, nose and palate scents and identify any defects, as well as suggest the ideal combinations at the table. There are also employees involved in the development of tourism with the project to create at least one beer road in every region of Italy to enhance the discovery of local territories and products". 

Climate friendly (and competitive)

"A system of quality and variety of production that however -warn experts- is threatened by climate change with drought and extreme weather events that, in 2023, scored a -40% in the harvest of barley from beer compared to 2019. While the homologation and standardization of production at international level also put at risk the ancient seeds of the Italian tradition wisely kept for years by generations of farmers".