Spreadable beer? How queer. And, indeed, it’s made me feel a bit off… Mostly because I wanted to really, really love this
I like the texture – the spreadable beer has a strange and most pleasant, slightly sticky, Vaseline-smoothness. I like the smell – the pale version like a happy, hoppy shandy; its dark double more malt and mystique. I like the taste – a true, if too subtle, beer flavour… At least initially, until a pronounced lingering bitterness puckers my palate. I just wanted something more. It’s a clever concept that’s oh-so-almost there.
And when it gets there, it’s a concept – and a product – I’ll buy into again. Currently more curio than cracking eat,’Birra Spalmabile‘ nonetheless has great potential as a fantastic friend to fromage; a companion to cold cuts; or even a toast topping – a sexed-up take on the sweet savoury slipperiness of the malt extract that’s the deeply untrendy preserve of the’wholefood-worthies’. It certainly ticks’queer’. It just needs to be every bit as much’beer’.
The product is the result of a collaboration between two Lazio fellows; Pietro Napoleone, an Italian chocolatier; and the Alta Quota brewery’s Claudio Lorenzini. The innovation was the first success story in the creation of a non-liquid beer, debuted at last year’s Salone del Gusto in Turin. Both light and dark spreads are almost half ale, with the remaining proportion – syrups and gelling agents – providing the voluptuous body of the gooey paste.
I want spreadable beer to be big. It’s like the ugly duckling friend you just know will be a real beaut once they ditch the dandruff and shed the spare tyre. A couple of recipe tweaks and I’m confident this pair will come out swinging, loudly proclaiming’We’re here! We’re beer! Get used to it!’. I’m sure, in time, I will. Actually, perhaps I should sample another spoonful just to be sure…
‘Birra Spalmabile’ spreadable beer is available in Greta (blonde) and Omid (dark) varieties from Selfridges, priced £7.99 for a 280g jar.
For more information on the chocolaterie and brewery behind the product, visit www.cioccolatonapoleone.com and www.birraaltaquota.it