Vignette 34: Valter Loverier (LoverBeer)

Valter Loverier is an understated brewer from Marentino, Italy, in the rolling wine country of Piedmont. He is one of the most interesting brewers I've encountered in my travels, and was the first to introduce me to the idea of "inoculation via fruit" (he uses wine grapes, of course). I visited the brewery at the tail end of 2012. See all the vignettes in the series here.

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“It is started from the yeast on the skin of the grape. These are the two different areas. One is the grapes and the fermentation and the yeast; the other is the process—the wood, the timing, the cleaning, how to start the fermentation.”

“This is the philosophy of the brewery: to join, to have a fusion of the recipes of the Flemish area with the Piedmont winemaker’s [culture], and so we use wood, fruit, grapes. Italians have free minds that are not anchored to the old tradition like Germany or England. We were inspired by the US, not Europe. The US was inspired to take the heritage of all Europe; and now we are also exploring all Europe also. We needed to create a new product and Italy is different and has a cultural connection to wine and food and also to the cereal.”