Claudio Cerullo one of the two brothers from Amiata

Last week we ate and drank our way around Wallonia with old friends, John Auerbach and Corby Kummer. The excursion culminated in a mammoth beer tasting at Moeder Lambic in Brussels on Tuesday. Though the majority of the beers we tasted were, naturally Belgian, a highlight of the occasion was Vecchia Bastarda, a wonderful beer we recently began importing (an Honorary Belgian Beer)  from the Amiata Brewery in Tuscany. It’s made with chestnut flour and is aged in Bolgheri wine barrels. The next day, John flew to Boston, Don drove to Ghent, while Corby and I explored more of Brussels. At day’s end, we parted company at Gare Centrale – he bound for Bra, Italy. Kummer is is the senior editor at The Atlantic, the author of The Pleasures of Slow Food, a member of the organization’s Advisory Board, and a professor at Slow Food’s University of Gastronomic Sciences. He was headed to Bra to teach a workshop on food writing. Imagine our amazement when a few days later we got this email from Corby:

Corby chats with Mme Wittamer at the famous Sablon pastry shop

“In a what-are-the odds coincidence, the most talented writer in my class, Danish not Dutch but tall tall tall, wrote a paper today about… Amiata, with special focus on the chestnut. Nice piece, nice guy. I told I had to have it to send to you, and he gives you free rein to put it on your site.”

A Dane studying in Bra writes on craft beer in Tuscany under the tutelage of an American journalist from Boston who is friends with two Chicagoans in Belgium who import beer!

Johan does a wonderful job of painting a picture of the pair of brothers who run the brewery and describing the beers. We are so glad to have it! The second shipment of Amiata’s beers just arrived in the States and speedily sold out at the distributor level. We hope you will go out and try to find some.  The main shipment was their Contessa Italian Pale Ale, but as a special treat they included sixteen barrels of Vecchia Bastarda. We fully expect to hear from at least sixteen people to get their feedback on the beer. Enjoy!

Chestnut Bastards by Johan Dal

“We make this chestnut polenta dish, would you like to try it?” A restaurant owner has to know his clientele, but asking to bring out a savory dish of roasted chestnut polenta with ricotta and fried animelle after a rustic four course dinner and dessert seems a bit odd. But the brothers from the Tuscan based Amiata brewery do not hesitate. Minutes later we’re diving into the best dish of the night, the sweetness of the chestnuts balanced by the bitter grill char, the salty pieces of the meat and the creaminess of fresh ricotta.

As the bus pulls up in front of a warehouse in an industrial quarter of the tiny town of Arcidossi, in the Tuscan region of Maremma, we have no idea that this will happen just a few hours later. Welcomed by two almost identical brothers, the owners and brewers of Amiata brewery, named after the nearby Amiata mountain, at this grey and dull structure, expectations are low. The brewery might not look it, but we soon to find out that the dullness of the outside converts into liveliness and excitement once we pass the doorstep.

Looking at the brothers is like seeing an older and a newer version of the same person. Or a mini me, since the younger one has just a little less of everything – except hair maybe. Both of them extremely tall, overweight, bald and sinister looking, they do not seem like worthwhile company, but their Tuscan warmth, their deep toned chuckle and their love for beer make them adorable. They are into beer. They are geeks. The beauty of it is that they know it. And love it.

They do not talk much; we almost have to pull information out of them. But they start getting excited as they understand that we are interested and want to taste whatever they will put before us. They pull out one beer after another, all named after mythical figures of the region. One of the beers is supposed to taste like sea breeze, another one is saffron infused, there is a barley wine, a pumpkin beer, coriander-orange peel ale and the list just keeps on going. Their production line reads like one long experiment. Using strange ingredients, fermenting this, adding that, bottle aging, you name it, they have tried it. Maybe successfully, maybe not. They say themselves that they are not there yet, that they are new to brewing, only having done it for about three years; and yes, after trying a certain amount of them some of the beers are certainly more weird and funky than refined and enjoyable. But their passion holds our attention.

The region is famous and holds an IGP for their chestnuts. Everywhere we have been, we have been served products containing these local wonders: castagniaccio, bread with chestnuts, roasted chestnuts. So why not a chestnut beer? Of course they make that. Three different ones. They call it “Bastarda Rossa”, red bastard, made with 20% chestnuts, double bastard, “Bastarda Doppia” made with twice the amount and “Vecchia Bastarda”, old bastard, which is the double bastard kept in wine barrels for nine month before bottling. We try one after another, spitting throughout the tasting, slowly but surely feeling the influence of the alcohol or maybe just dizzy and delirious from the many, countless impressions thrown at us. Nevertheless, the chestnut beer is interesting and saying no is would not be very polite. The beer has a red shimmer to it, hence the name. It foams heavily in the glass and easily gives away the sweet nutty aroma from the chestnuts. Tasting it reveals that it is no joke. It tastes like chestnuts, pretty unforgivingly. Like it or not, the taste is there, in your face. It is a very sweet beer, not very refreshing and the bubbles seem to disappear to make it even heavier, but it is unlike anything else. As we compliment the brothers, they already pour the double.

When asked if they want to join us for dinner, the younger brother pulls out his cellphone and we understand he has prior engagements he has to settle first if possible. “Mamma?” we hear him say before he is out of hearing distance. After a few minutes he returns and announces that dinner was not on the stove yet, so they would be happy to join us.