This post is a part of the 2015 New Beer Every Day Beer Diary Challenge, #ottbeerdiary. Over the course of 2015, I will be trying a new beer every day. Please read the background in the link above, and enjoy reading about the most recently tasted beers below. If you’d like to join the challenge as well, let me know in the comments below, and be sure to check out Grown-up Travel Guide and his #grownupbeerdiary, where Andy Higgs came up with the diary format in use below. You can catch up on all of our posts as part of the challenge under the tag ottbeerdiary.
Day 166: June 15, 2015
Diary entry:
Today we Continue on our road trip down to the Emilia Romagna region of Italy for this year’s Blogville project. We’ll be staying in Bologna, Rimini, and Reggio Emilia over the next two weeks, sampling the local foods, beers, and wines of Emilia Romagna. Follow along with the hashtags #Blogville, #inEmiliaRomagna, and #ViaEmilia.
We slept in a little bit this morning to allow the morning rush-hour traffic to pass, and then continued on to the final leg of our journey to Emilia Romagna, the Blogville apartment in Bologna.
Now, we had seen some pictures from the apartment that others had posted, but that didn’t prepare me for just how close the apartment was to the Piazza Maggiore. The apartment is literally on the Piazza, within the Palazzo dei Banchi, looking directly out onto the Basilica di San Petronio. You can’t ask for a better view! The only downside is that parking is not directly at the apartment, so we had a but of a trek with our bags.
We settled in and met the other bloggers staying in the apartment this week, then a group of us went out for an apirtivo with Nick, the head of Blogville, at the city’s oldest wine bar, Osteria del Sole, where they also had a few beers available. Very low prices, communal tables, with a nice interior courtyard. You can bring in your own food to enjoy with your drinks. A very cool place to sit with your friends for a drink in the evening. They do close relatively early, around 9:30 PM, so definitely more an apirtivo stop, but not a late-night establishment.
The Beer:
Name: Birra Antoniana
Style: Vienna Lager
Producer: Birrificio Antoniano
Alcohol content: 5.4%
Bottle size: 0.33l
Purchased from: Osteria del Sole in Bologna, Italy
The second of the beers we tried in the Osteria del Sole, this was actually the most expensive at €3.50 per bottle. But it also turned out to be my favorite of the evening, so all is good! This was a very clean, refreshing lager, with a nice, slight, lingering bitterness. We actually tried to order another round of these later, but they had sold out!
Commercial Description: Vienna-style beer from the old gold color from copper hues. Fine foam, compact and persistent. Notes of malt, caramel and biscuit for a beer with good balance, soft body, enveloping and easy to drink.
