Recently, new evidence emerged that French winemaking traditions, rooted in the concept of terroir, might have originated in Italy. Italians can now toast this heady news with new homegrown beers exhibiting terroir, too. While beer production in Italy can be traced back nearly three millennia, craft brewing as we know it is only in its second decade (that is, if we take the founding of Baladin in 1996 as the year "zero"). “The past five years, in particular, have been productive,” says American food and drink writer and culinary travel app developer Katie Parla, based in Rome. “Hundreds of craft brewers have cropped up nationwide. Quality varies wildly; prices are universally high, regardless,” she continues. The bright side? “The lack of established tradition has given rise to a huge number of styles, from sour ales to oyster stouts.” In other words, Italy’s beer history is being written with each bold new experiment.

In an attempt to communicate terroir—loosely, the sense of place expressed in food & drink—and to imply a regional identity, some of the new era Italian brewers employ local ingredients in the brewing process. The most successful examples, Parla says, come from Piedmont's LoverBeer and Birrificio Montegioco. Have you tried a great Italian beer? Tell us below.

And read on for three of Parla’s tried and true recommendations you can find at great bottle shops and the largest Whole Foods supermarkets.

Grape Meets Grain
“Look for LoverBeer's BeerBera, which incorporates pressed barbera grapes and their indigenous yeasts.”

Peach Perfect
“Montegioco's Quarta Runa sees cooked Volpedo peaches added during fermentation to a sweet and aromatic end.”

Surf & Turf
“On the savory side, Birra del Borgo's Perle Ai Porci (exported from Lazio to the US for the first time this year) is made with telline del littorale Romano (Roman bean clams), which impart a brininess reminiscent of the seaside near Rome.”
 

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