Tĕrra
Dark Belgian Ale · 33 cl bottle
Seven degrees, caramel and herbaceous hops
€4,40
What it is, and what is in it
Seven degrees and seventeen Plato: Tĕrra starts with a dense wort, and that density is fully perceptible. The color is deep amber with honey reflections, and the head is white and persistent.
The interplay is between two things. On one hand, the sweetness of caramel, which comes from the malts and a fermentation that leaves residual sugars. On the other, the aromatic, fresh, and herbaceous hops, which cut through that sweetness before it becomes cloying. Thirty-two bitterness units: enough to support seven degrees without the sip feeling heavy.
This is the beer the brewery serves on special occasions: it pairs well with aged cheeses and game, which is another way of saying it’s not meant for casual drinking.
- Fermentation
- Top fermentation, natural bottle conditioning
- Filtration
- Unfiltered, unpasteurized
- Ingredients
- Water, barley malt, wheat, sugar, hops, yeast.
- Allergens
- Gluten (barley malt, wheat).
What it is like
Color
Deep amber
What the brewery drinks it with
The pairings declared for this beer.
- Aged cheeses
- Molluscs
- Fatty fish
- Cured meats
- Red meats
- Game
The label’s terms, explained
What a Dark Belgian Ale is
Not a style with a rulebook, but a family: the dark ales of the Belgian school, high in strength and round rather than angular. What holds them together is the yeast, not the malt — and the consequence is that seven per cent, in a beer like this, does not reach the nose as alcohol but as fruit and spice.
Belgian yeast
The strains used in Belgium work at higher temperatures than average and, in doing so, produce esters and phenols: molecules that to the nose resemble ripe fruit, banana, clove, pepper. They are not added flavorings, they are a by-product of the fermentation. It is why two beers with the same malts and the same hops, fermented with different yeasts, taste of two different things.
Wheat in a barley beer
Alongside the barley malt, the brewery declares wheat. Wheat carries more protein than barley, and the proteins hold the head up: a beer with wheat makes a denser, longer-lasting head, and gives a fuller feel in the mouth. It is a cereal containing gluten, and that is why it appears among the allergens together with barley.
The Plato degree
It measures the sugars dissolved in the wort before the yeast begins to work: one degree Plato is equal to one gram of extract per hundred grams of wort. Seventeen is a dense wort — by comparison, an ordinary pale beer starts at eleven or twelve — and it is from there that both the seven per cent and the full body come.
What IBUs are
International Bitterness Units: the laboratory measurement of the bittering compounds given up by the hops. An industrial pale lager sits at around 10-20, a pale ale between 30 and 45, a modern IPA often goes above 60. It is not a scale of taste: on a dense, sugary wort the same number is felt less, because the residual sweetness covers part of the bitterness.
Unfiltered, unpasteurized, bottle conditioned
These are three distinct things. Unfiltered: the yeast stays in suspension. Unpasteurized: the beer is not heated to stop the biological activity. Bottle conditioned: a last sugar is added and the yeast produces the carbon dioxide inside the closed bottle. A veil of yeast settles at the bottom: pour slowly and it stays in the bottle, pour it all out and the beer becomes cloudier.
What it says on the bottle
The mandatory label information, transcribed from the label of the size on sale.
- Designation
- Amber craft beer
- Ingredients
- Water, barley malt, wheat, sugar, hops, yeast.
- Allergens
- Gluten (barley malt, wheat).
- Alcoholic strength
- 7% vol.
- Contents
- 33 cl bottle
- Place of production
- Produced in San Pierino, Fucecchio (FI)
| Energy | 254 kJ / 61 kcal |
|---|---|
| Fat | 0 g |
| of which saturated fatty acids | 0 g |
| Carbohydrate | 3.6 g |
| of which sugars | 0.9 g |
| Protein | 0.5 g |
| Salt | <0.01 g |
| Alcohol (ethanol) | 5.5 g |
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 and 75 cl bottle; 24 l and 30 l keg.
The brewery’s other beers
Gli elementi
Le speciali
