Craig’s tasting
Like all good Italian beers, Menabrea owes its better qualities to the fact that it was perfected in northern Italy and was likely influenced by the more respected and refined brewers in what is now Germany and Austria.
In keeping with my theme of commenting on current world events when reviewing beers I want to make a few observations regarding the Commonwealth Games currently being held in Dehli, India. I suspect that if you are reading as an American, Brazilian or Russian you may not have even heard of this great sporting event. In spite of this and for explanation purposes, the Commonwealth Games pitches four wealthy countries against one hundred other countries with a combined average personal income of about $3.79 a year.
The subsequent annihilation is the sporting equivalent of watching a cancer patient undergo an operation to remove a cancerous testicle. Completely unenjoyable, occasionally putting you off eating but all the while ensuring you hope it turns out well for the person involved.
I believe the world of beer competition is very similar to the Commonwealth Games. Whilst they are not completely irrelevant they don’t really give us a good picture of how each beer really rates on a global scale. But in stark contrast, while the sporting community has the Olympic Games to truly test the abilities of athletes around the world. Beer makers have no equivalent.
This anomaly is one reason thesmoko.com.au was created. However, due to lack of funds for promotion of our services and very average writing abilities our goal of hosting the worlds first truly global beer competition remains elusive.
Now that Menabrea has hit the world stage by being featured on thesmoko.com.au we can get a clearer picture of where it really sits. I can now say that Menabrea is what I would term the local hero, an absolute class act compared to its local rivals but painfully short of world class. If it were a 100m race Menabrea would be eliminated in the semi finals.
