taken from the article by Maurizio Maestrelli published in Good Beer Hunting
In Sardinia, cooked grape must has always had an important use in the preparation of typical desserts.
Being a fermentable material, I thought it could be used to enrich a beer, after a long maturation in steel and subsequent long refinement in the bottle.
And so it was that back in 2006, Barley Brewery began to produce its first beers with grape must: it started with BB10 with cooked must from Cannonau grapes; then it was the turn of BB Evò in 2008, enriched with cooked must from Nasco grapes; in 2011, BB9, enriched with cooked must from Malvasia di Bosa grapes and, gradually, the others.
Subsequently, in 2015, the production of beers with fresh must from aromatic and semi-aromatic grapes was introduced.
The forerunner of this new line was BB7 with must from Moscato di Cagliari grapes, then BB6 with must from Malvasia di Cagliari grapes, and others in which various other grapes were used, such as Nuragus, Vermentino, Cannonau and Carignano.
In the latter two cases, the production of must from red grapes required extra processing in the cellar, in order to extract as much flavour and colour from the grapes. The result was surprising!
To this day, BB10 is considered the pioneer of an all-Italian way of making beer, known worldwide as ‘Italian Grape Ale’.
Nicola Perra
