Last fall, GBH’s Mark Spence was in town, lured to Copenhagen for work. We decided to catch up over a few drinks, the worst of Danish weather holding off just long enough for us to snag a seat outside as the low sun stretched shadows across our small café table. One topic of discussion centered around how beer tourism had dropped precipitously for us both, that visiting a brewery or craft beer bar while traveling is more incidental these days. Perhaps it’s no coincidence we discussed this at a wine bar.
It’s true. My days of traveling specifically for beer seem to be in the rearview. I used to plan city breaks around an anchor or centerpiece brewery or bar. Now, I find myself visiting one if it happens to be on the way to another destination—a convenient stop-off to rest the legs and see what’s on tap. While my curiosity around beer and its purveyors still remains piqued, happenstance has replaced intent to a large degree.
Still, there are those places that stir the old me. The places where intent still exists, still implores me to carve out some time in the travel itinerary. In Rome, Ma Che Siete Venuti a Fà is just such a place.
Opened in 2001, it predates my involvement in craft beer by a solid 10 years. Standing in front of the stickered entryway to the tiny taproom, I appreciate it for being so far ahead of the curve. It’s not the sleekest, nor the most photogenic I’ve visited, but there’s a reason it’s on most Rome beer lists, and a perennial host to Cantillon’s Zwanze Day—it’s a place that cares about craft, and has for a very long time.
On the day I visit, a tap takeover dedicated to Franconian beer as part of FrankenBierFest is just getting underway. It’s refreshing to stand in the cobblestone street just beyond the door and witness a relaxed, communal scene, as folks drink pints of Lager—I imagine it probably didn’t look much different 20 years ago. It’s also refreshing to sit, sipping a beer, watching throngs of people walk the serpentine streets of Trastevere, and feel reminded that places like this are worth making time for. While my orbit has perhaps widened in recent years, straying a bit from the center of the industry, every now and again it’s fun to drift close enough to feel the warmth that craft beer has to offer.
Words + Photoby Cory Smith