One of the greatest aspects of craft beer are the stories behind it. You know, the classic “we started brewing in a garage at moms place” type scenario. With this in mind it was very pleasant to start digging into the story behind The Italian Job brewery and their Forza IPA. We’ve been through several IPA’s recently and we will make sure that The Italian Job Forza IPA is the last one we do for a while. We will look at something different next week. Until then, read on!
The Brewery
The Italian Job brewery has a fantastic website with no shortage of info on their story and how they came about. To give the abridged version probably best to mention that the founders are Italian (what gave it away?), more than that they are a family that came up with the idea of a brewery while having dinner one evening. This family, the Viglietti’s, then bought on Master Brewer Sven Lehey in 2015 to do what he does best. To add to Sven’s credibility he trained under Wolfang Koedel who ultimately has gone on to become the Master Brewer at the Cape Brewing Company. Spending that much time with Wolfgang something surely must have rubbed off?
They are based in Blackheath and unfortunately, from what we can tell, it’s not a brewery that is open to the public. Something that we’re sure will change in the future.
The Beer
To the beer, they are currently producing five beers:
- Forza IPA
- Amore Amber Ale
- Amicizia Weiss
- Familgia Pilsner
- Gioia Oktoberfest (seasonal)
We have yet to try some of their other beers but it’s a really nice line up to have. Also interesting to see that they are very specific in mentioning the ingredients for each of their beers – Hops, yeast, water and malt. Nothing more, nothing less. We could get into the Reinheitsgebot “German Purity Law” but given this is “The Italian Job” we’ll pass over this quickly.
Ultimately, The Italian Job Forza IPA is our Featured Beer for the week. Retailing for the standard R30 its worth trying out. If you want to find The Italian Job online you can reach them through their website, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Let us know your thoughts and if there is a beer you would like to see us feature.
Until next week, Cheers!