33 cl Mars bottle, magenta red label with the wording Red IPA
Il cielo · Birrificio Aries

Mars

Red IPA · 33 cl bottle

Deep red-brown, seven degrees, caramel

€5,50

Style Red IPA
Alcohol 7% vol.
Bitterness 40 IBU
Wort 17° Plato
This beer

What it is, and what is in it

Full-bodied, with a balance between the sweetness of the malt and the bitterness of the hops. It has a deep reddish-brown color, a full aroma, and on the palate, you'll find malty caramel notes beneath a fine-grained, compact head.

It is unfiltered and unpasteurized: it re-ferments in the bottle. Seven degrees and forty units of bitterness.

Fermentation
Top fermentation, natural bottle conditioning
Filtration
Unfiltered, unpasteurized
Ingredients
Water, barley malt, wheat, sugar, hops, yeast.
Allergens
Gluten (barley malt and wheat).
On tasting

What it is like

Color

Deep red-brown

At the table

What the brewery drinks it with

The pairings declared for this beer.

  • Bruschetta with liver pâté
  • Smoked fish or meat carpaccio
  • Grilled or slow-cooked red meat
  • Tuscan soppressata
The words of this beer

The label’s terms, explained

What an IPA is

India Pale Ale. The name comes from the pale ales the English shipped to India in the nineteenth century: more heavily hopped and stronger than the others, because hops and alcohol preserve. Today it no longer preserves anything, and IPA has become the name of a family of beers in which the hops — in bitterness and in aroma — come before everything else.

What the “Red” adds

The red color of a Red IPA comes from the malts, not from a coloring: caramel and lightly roasted malts that bring, besides the tint, a caramel sweetness. It is that sweetness that sets it apart from a pale IPA: the hops find something to push against instead of standing alone, and the beer comes out fuller and less dry at the close.

Wheat in a barley beer

Alongside the barley malt, the label declares wheat. Wheat carries more protein than barley, and protein holds up the head: a beer with wheat makes a denser, longer-lasting head, and gives a fuller feel in the mouth. It is a cereal with gluten, and for that reason 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 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. It is not a scale of taste: on a dense, caramelly wort the same number is felt less, because the malt absorbs part of it.

0Mars · 40 IBU100

Degrees Plato

It measures the sugars dissolved in the wort before the yeast starts to work: one degree Plato is equal to one gram of extract per hundred grams of wort. Seventeen is a dense wort — an ordinary blond starts at eleven or twelve — and it is from there that the seven degrees and the full body come together.

On the label

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.
Allergens
Gluten (barley malt and wheat).
Alcoholic strength
7% vol.
Contents
33 cl bottle
Place of production
Produced in San Pierino, Fucecchio (FI)
Average values per 100 ml
Energy 242 kJ / 58 kcal
Fat 0 g
of which saturates 0 g
Carbohydrate 4,4 g
of which sugars 0,7 g
Protein 0,6 g
Salt <0,01 g
Alcohol (ethanol) 5,5 g
The brewery

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.