“Meet me by the Lamborghinis” he said. Indeed, what better rendezvous in the airport of Bologna, birthplace of the Raging Bull? The man I found gazing at those gleaming masterpieces was Giovanni Campari, founder of another uniquely Italian albeit less glamorous venture— Birrificio Del Ducato. A little weathered and with crow’s feet crinkling around his eyes, Giovanni still has a boyish grin and gestures with irrepressible excitement. That enthusiasm has taken him far: since establishing the brewery in 2007 with partner Manuel Piccoli, his diversely decorated portfolio and international advocacy for better beer have propelled Del Ducato to the forefront of Italy’s craft revolution, now 1,000 breweries strong.
Giovanni is not one to rest on his laurels, though, and on the road back home to Parma he enumerated a dizzying list of projects: scaling down mainline production at the original brewery in Roncole Verdi; transferring equipment and scaling up at a much larger new facility in Soragna, about 5 kilometers down the road; remotely administrating The Italian Job, England’s first all-Italian craft beer bar in Chiswick, London; handling Italian distribution for at least one other brand; consulting with others on the challenges of the export market; grappling with Italy’s bureaucratic bias against beer (compared to wine, whose lobbyists are far more moneyed and entrenched); and, back in Roncole, learning how to restore, maintain, rotate, and keep full a barrage of newly acquired cooperage. Cellarmanship is hardly new to Del Ducato, but more dedicated management will be necessary now that their arsenal numbers nearly 100 barriques (aka Bordeaux barrels, each 220L). Most of the barrels were used for renowned Italian red wines (e.g. Amarone and Brunello di Montalcino) while others held such renowned Islay scotches as Caol Ila, Ardbeg, Bowmore, Macallan, and Laphroaig. Del Ducato’s largest barrels are also relatively recent additions: two each of 44, 54, and 80 hl, selected from a Nebbiolo producer in Piedmont. Altogether they are enough to turn the Roncole facility into a 100% sour/wild small-batch barrel works once mainstay production there ceases. It was, I could tell, going to be a busy two days in Parma.
My first destination was a Del Ducato-sponsored homebrew competition held at one of the premier craft destinations in town, Birreria Le Vecchie Maniere (Bar of the Old Ways). Giovanni had pulled a couple last-minute strings to place me on a judging panel proctored by senior brewer Danilo Troianiello, a burly fellow with the full beard and perpetual hoodie native to most brewers but also delicate eyeglasses and polished English (none too common in Parma). As night fell outside we sipped and sniffed through an array of American-style strong ales, ultimately selecting a winner who would spend a day scaling up his recipe at Del Ducato itself.
Refreshment came afterwards in the form of white bread jelly sandwiches—or so I thought at first. As it turns out Parma is among the world’s leading consumers of horse meat, and what had looked like mere jelly from afar was actually pesto di cavallo, a minced horsemeat tartare often served between bread with spritzes of lemon citrus, salt, onions, or olive oil. After two fistfuls of hoppy 7+% ABV ales it was a welcome if unexpected interlude, especially once paired with a draught of Vecchie’s house ale. Brewed by Del Ducato, 40/A (the bar’s street address) is a straightforward, Chinook-hopped pale ale with a medium light body and pleasant balance between floral hop aromas and a little leafy bitterness towards the finish. A worthy nightcap pairing.
The next morning Giovanni and I drove out to the rough and tumble Roncole facility for the first of two tours. From its sticker-spattered bottling line and partially-matured barrels of Chrysopolis stored alongside bags of malt to the paperwork scattered across virtually every flat surface, Roncole obviously developed as much out of necessity as preference. It should make for a perfectly cozy souring facility once repurposed, but clearly has become too small to accommodate Del Ducato’s expanding needs. Brewing operations continue there for the moment, however, and at the time of my visit a batch of Koji il Riso was steaming merrily away. The new building in Soragna, meanwhile, was triumphant—several times as large, it’s stocked with glistening new fermenters, a vaulted wood-beamed ceiling, in-house grain milling, and updated brewing equipment and software to help improve yields and consistency.
Despite these updates Del Ducato has no aspirations to become a mass-production beer factory. This was the vow of their one-man marketing team Filippo Storgato, who led me through a private tasting while Giovanni and Danilo prepared a test batch of Winterlude on the new system. Filippo shares the glasses, beard, and Del Ducato hoodie with Danilo, but is younger, more slight of build, and an absolute natural in presentation, describing each beer with lyrical passion and pouring with smiling grace. And though he is tasked with the brewery’s social media and marketing, Filippo is no common commercial/business school cutout. Instead, he comes to the brewery by way of agriculture and food science, which is reflected in his earnest appreciation and underlying commitment to the brewery’s handcrafted values. His first taste of VIÆMILIA several years ago was his beer awakening, and since then he’s spent his time proselytizing and helping define the brewery’s three distinct ranges: ‘Ricerce’, ‘Stile’, and ‘Tempo’. Our tasting spanned all three—the experimental ‘Research’, modern and more straightforward ‘Style’, and the nuanced middle ground of ‘Time’. The range of flavors on display was remarkable, but even more so was the consistency of character. Across Kellerpils, Rauchbier Märzens, robust porters, balanced English pales, full-bodied Tripels, bright saisons, and myriad wild/sours, Giovanni’s beers possess a smoothness of texture and balanced depth of flavor that reflects their careful composition. Some highlighted tasting notes:
- VIÆMILIA (Kellerpils – 5%): Fresh, semi-pungent floral/earthy aroma from Tettnang hops hand-selected in Germany each harvest (70% whole cone, pellets used only for bittering). Unfiltered for a somewhat rounder mouthfeel, edged with honey, moderate carbonation. Refreshing yet restrained bitterness in the finish.
- Winterlude (Tripel – 8.8%): Lavender, lemon shortbread, vanilla wafer, light slickness from the alcohol, not as phenol spicy as some but still sparkling in character. Slightly fuller body balanced by elevated hop character—selections Poperinge chosen for a touch of chive flavor.
- Wedding Rauch (Rauchbier – 5.2%): Smooth interplay of Speck/Landjäger, black pepper, whiff of medicinal, then caramel malt, maybe Carafa, and subtle dryness in the finish. Smoke is an envelope around the richer malt core, but indeed bottom-fermented for a refined finish.
- Vielle Ville (Brett Saison – 6%): Lemongrass, white pepper, coriander, zesty Brett Brux character offering some tang and a bit of must, but mild bitterness and higher carbonation scrub the funk out cleanly across the palate. Very articulate.
- Oud Brunello (Oud Bruin – 7%): Done in tandem with Oxbow in Maine, partially leveraging house bacteria cocktail from Chrysopolis barrels for fermentation, then racked to freshly dumped Brunello barrels for an Italian tweak to the style. Virtually flat, deeply layered tartness and complex toffee malt/tart berry core beneath overtones of leather, balsamic, and nose-twinging acidity.
- Beersel Mattina (Saison/lambic blend – 6.2%): Part Ducato Nuova Mattina, part oude lambik, albeit ultimately more akin to young lambic for the lower CO2 level and slightly gummier mouthfeel (starches left to break down?). Orange tang, honey-lemon tea, slightly herbal, edges of tartness and some barrel tannins, but modest and softly lactic with a slight cidery twist. Very balanced.
- La Luna Rossa (Kriek-style grand cru – 8%): Chimera/Chrysopolis/wheat mash blend. Very tart cherries underscored with caramel malts, woody and fruit skin tannins, lasting but refreshing acidity in the gums, just a touch of acetic (harkening to its Flemish red inspiration). A little soda or sparkling rose, semi-sweet up front. Touch of ABV roundness helps temper its assertiveness, gentle effervescence after an initial eruption. Exemplary blending technique.
- My Blueberry Nightmare (Barrel-aged sour blueberry/pepper imperial stout 9.4%): A true mouthful. Black pepper dryness, overripe blueberry skin, red pepper flake heat. Mouthfeel a little like saturated wood, rich and gamey in the middle before loam/black earth emerge, finish like a finely structured red wine. Dominates the palate start to finish, but layered enough to not exhaust any one flavor receptor.
- Brett Peat Daydream (Barrel-aged Brett/Peated barleywine/Rauchbier blend– 7%): Iodine, some peat/funk/foot interplay on the nose, but more restrained on the palate. The ample body of the barleywine base is like fluid in the gearbox, helping to mate the distinctly separate gears of smoke and Brett. Tangy, but still somewhat round, balance in finish and a true confluence of all flavors in retronasals.
Most of my visit was spent at the new facility: tasting California Sun (their Common-style hybrid) from the fermenter or wort samples destined to become Winterlude; watching Danilo sift through different grists produced by their new mill; and poring over the computer systems that will bring more order to their large-scale production. As much as Del Ducato is celebrated abroad for the likes of Beersel Mattina or Verdi Imperial Stout, it is more straightforward beers like Via Emilia and Machete DIPA that comprise the majority of their production in Italy.
Still, even amidst those shiny new brew kettles I could tell that Giovanni was equally excited by Roncole’s rebirth as an experimental playground, where uncompromising flavors and unconventional blends will run wild. This is, after all, the same brewer that put lobster meat in a Saison and Brettanomyces in a peated Rauchbier/barleywine cuvee. Finally equipped with the resources to explore his creativity and stretch his brewers’ expertise, a Nuova Mattina is indeed dawning at Del Ducato.