Evans Ale at
the Salone del Gusto What do chocolate-covered pumpkin seeds from Austria, donkey salami from Italy, and beers from all over the world have in common? All were available for tasting pleasure at Salone del Gusto, the five-day intercontinental collision of taste and culture presented by the International Slow Food Movement. Slow Food is an organization spanning five continents and boasting 60,000 members, half of whom reside in Italy. Membership is open to any interested party and, although the organization enjoys only modest membership in the United States, local chapters, or convivia, can be found throughout the country. |
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Slow Food members organize the Salone del Gusto, or Hall of Taste, biennially at the Lingotto center, a former Fiat factory which has been converted into an enormous convention center in Turin, Italy. The festival showcased food and beverage produced by hundreds of companies committed to regional, seasonal, and organic comestibles crafted according to traditional methods – a feast for anyone who loves to taste, as well as an opportunity for festival-goers to sample food and drink not readily available in their particular corner of the world. We worked all five days of the festival, pouring beers from ten American breweries, including our own C.H. Evans Brewing Company. We brought our award-winning Kick-Ass brown, Pump Station Pale and State Street Porter. Some of the other breweries there were Brooklyn, Deschutes, Lefthand/Tabernash and Kona (from Hawaii). |
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Most of the 138,000 festival attendees were Italian, and since neither Jenn nor I speak our ancestral tongue, describing the beers was a bit of a challenge. Fortunately, Eric Wallace from Lefthand/Tabernash is quite fluent and wrote up a list of beer descriptors. As people approached the stand, often with some visible trepidation, we would say, “assagio?” (taste) They would most often reply that they would like a taste, which then prompted the utterance of the words, “dolce o amara? Chiara o scura?” (sweet or bitter, light or dark). We could gauge people’s opinions of the beers by the look on their face and their requests for seconds. There were plenty of requests for seconds! |
There were some other beers at the Salone, including a selection of cask-conditioned beers from England. The most notable of these was Orkney Brewery’s MacGregor Red, with a big hop nose, and a touch of sulphury “home-perm” aroma. Medium-bodied, with a nice malt-hop balance, this proved to be my favorite session beer of the festival, although the Ayinger booth had some highly-drinkable offerings, too. |
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The Italian craft brew booth had several unique offerings, most of which were in the upper range of alcohol content. One memorable beer, named “Super,” was a malty, light amber beer with 8% alcohol and a pleasant finish in which malt and hops balanced well. My favorite Italian beer was Panil Barriquée, a brown, richly malty strong ale with the wonderful, earthy characteristics of Brettenomyces. I had more than one! | |
Italian craft brewers ready at their taps |
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Suppose, for a moment, that we always thought
of it this way. How would
this alter the way we live our lives, the way we choose our food, the way
we relate to the earth? If
soil, sunlight, air, and water are the rawest materials of our food
supply, then why are they often treated with such negligence, or even
abuse? In promoting
environmental sustainability, Slow Food seeks to resuscitate human
commitment to the land and its elements. For
more information about the Slow Food International Movement, visit their
website at Slowfood.com |
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