A te e famiglia
33 cl bottle
The brewery's Christmas beer
€6,60
What it is, and what is in it
This is the beer the brewery makes for Christmas, and the recipe states it before the label: a sweet stout with blood orange and cloves. The spices are not an embellishment – they are the only thing that distinguishes this beer from any ordinary stout.
Beneath the spices lies the work of toasted and roasted malts: dark chocolate and coffee, with the sweetness of the malt accompanying the entire sip instead of arriving at the end. The body is full and velvety, the carbonation delicate, and thirty bitterness units keep the sweetness in check.
Five percent ABV, intense brown. Unfiltered, unpasteurized, re-fermented in the bottle.
- Ingredients
- Water, barley malt, wheat, sugar, hops, yeast. Flavored with blood orange and cloves.
- Allergens
- Gluten (barley malt, wheat).
What the brewery drinks it with
The pairings declared for this beer.
- Chocolate and dry pastries
- Blue cheeses
- Roasts and braises
The label’s terms, explained
What a stout is
«Stout» meant stout in the sense of sturdy, and originally it meant the stronger version of a porter: same family, same dark malts, a step up in density and roast. In time it became a category of its own, recognized by the almost black color and the aromas of coffee and cocoa, which come from the roasted grains and not from an added flavoring.
Christmas beers and spices
Winter seasonal beers are a northern European tradition: darker, denser, almost always spiced. The spicing is not decoration — it is the way this kind of beer sets itself apart from the rest of the year, and it has to be declared on the label because it is part of the recipe just as the malt is.
Blood orange and clove
These are the two aromas the label declares. The orange peel brings a citrus bitterness that cuts the sweetness of the dark malts; the clove brings a warm, sharp note that reads at once against the roasted grain. They are added to the recipe, not produced by the yeast: here the spicing is declared, whereas in a weizen the clove comes out of the fermentation.
Wheat in a barley beer
Alongside the barley malt, the label declares wheat. Wheat carries more protein than barley, and protein holds the head up: the head on this beer is dense and persistent for that reason, and the body comes out fuller. It is a grain with gluten, and that is why it appears among the allergens together with barley.
What IBUs are
International Bitterness Units: the laboratory measure of the bittering compounds the hops have given up to the beer. An industrial pale lager sits around 10-20, a pale ale between 30 and 45, a modern IPA often goes past 60. On a dark, sweet beer the number is felt less than it says: the malt and the spices cover part of it.
What it says on the bottle
The mandatory label information, transcribed from the label of the size on sale.
- Ingredients
- Water, barley malt, wheat, sugar, hops, yeast. Flavored with blood orange and cloves.
- Allergens
- Gluten (barley malt, wheat).
- Contents
- 33 cl bottle
- Place of production
- Produced in San Pierino, Fucecchio (FI)
Where and how it is made
Daniele Nespeca, per Birrificio Aries, in Fucecchio.
A two-hectoliter brew · from barley to bottle, all in house
All 76 products by Birrificio Aries- How it is made
- Selection of raw materials, barley milling, mashing, filtration, whirlpool, yeast pitching, primary fermentation in fermenter, secondary fermentation in bottle or keg. All stages on-site: 2 hl brew kettle and two 600 l temperature-controlled stainless steel conical fermenters.
- Other sizes
- 33 cl bottle; 24 l keg.
The brewery’s other beers
Gli elementi
Le speciali
