Troll Brewery

Last time I told you I would write about our super duper awesome lunch up in the mountains near Limone. 

Fabri and I have been getting more and more interested in the microbrewery revolution taking place here in Italy.  I would say as few as 5 years ago there were hardly any microbrew beers being made in Italy, now they boast more than 265! Last June we went to a little brew fest in Saluzzo where we must have tried the beer from about 10 breweries.  Unfortunately, a lot of these places only produce the beer, they don't have a restaurant, but we are finding more and more brewery restaurants to check out.  Also, the Italian microbrewery scene is expanding and even Saluzzo has a Baladin bar serving only microbrews now! 

After snowshoeing, Fabri and I took Maria Pia & Antonio to Troll Brewery in the Grande Valley above Vernante (for those of you who have visited, Vernante is the Pinocchio town).  You can find Troll beer in many fancier restaurants and wine stores around here, but we had never tried it.  We wanted to go to the restaurant for our tasting.  We were particularly excited because the Troll website talks about how they cook with beer (something I want to learn more about) and they cook their meat on the grill!

When we arrived, we found Troll to be much larger than we had imagined, and much more popular.  We were lucky to find a table in what I imagine was the original dining room.  There was also a very large add on with enormous windows which were closed in winter, but can be opened to provide an open dining room in summer.  When entering, there is a beautiful wooden bar and a fireplace in the middle of the room.

I wanted to try basically all of the food prepared with beer which included trout marinated in beer and then smoked and thinly sliced; beer bread batter rolled in balls and fried; and fresh cheeses with beer and spices.  Yum, yumm, yummmmm!  Those were are appetizers then we shared a couple of large rib steaks cooked on the grill.  Next time we go, I'm going to pre-order a steak marinated in beer then grilled!  That has to be reserved 24 hours in advance to allow time for the marinade.

Ok, so the beer.  Like many Italian microbreweries, they are generally rather high in alcohol.  The double malt" with 8% - 9% alcohol is served in every pub here.  While I love malty beer, these are often highly alcoholic just for the sake of being alcoholic, not for a benefit to the flavor.  While Fabri was delighted to try an Italian I.P.A (his fave American style beer) (6%), I went right to the dark, malty beers: a red double malt (8.5%) and a winter stout for dessert (10.5%)!  Maria Pia had an interesting pale ale (5.2%) with an after taste of lavander and Antonio had a Belgian white (4.7%).  All pretty excellent.

Of course at the end we had to buy some bottles to bring home.  We got Fabri 3 bottles of the I.P.A. and the kind proprietor gifted us two Troll glasses so that we could drink the beer from the appropriate glass.  Little did he know that Fabri & I collect beer glasses!  Anyway, it was really nice and really fun and we can't wait to go back and of course we will be bringing my parents when they visit in April!