Italian Grape Ale

An Italian Grape Ale is beer brewed with wine grapes or their must, and the grape has to come through. White grapes tend to give peach, pear, apricot or pineapple; red grapes give cherry and strawberry. Most pour light gold to copper, some brown. The body is light to medium, a little acidity makes them taste drier, and the carbonation runs fairly high, which lifts the aroma.

Where it comes from

The BJCP says Birrificio Montegioco in Piedmont and Birrificio Barley in Sardinia first brewed it in 2006 and 2007. Montegioco’s Open Mind uses red grapes, and Barley’s BB10, an imperial stout, is made with sapa, Cannonau must cooked down in the Sardinian way. The style became better known once the BJCP published it in 2015, and brewers outside Italy began to copy it.

The BJCP now lists it twice. Appendix B keeps Italian Grape Ale as a local style for competitions in Italy, with a wide range of strengths, and category 29D, Grape Ale, covers the same idea elsewhere, with narrower numbers.

How it is made

Most are brewed from pilsner malt or another pale base malt, with little or no specialty malt, so the grape leads. Birrificio del Forte’s Il Tralcio ferments with both a brewing and a wine yeast and is finished like sparkling wine, by the metodo classico with disgorging. Ca’ del Brado, which ages most of its beer in barrels that held wine, brews grape ales with Lambrusco Grasparossa, Centesimino and Grechetto Gentile grapes.

Next to its neighbours

A fruit lambic is a spontaneously fermented Belgian beer with fruit added. In an Italian Grape Ale the fruit is the grape, on a pale base beer.

Italian Grape Ale in numbers

Classic examples

Birrificio Montegioco, Birrificio Barley, Birrificio del Forte, Ca' del Brado

BJCP X3, for Italy

OG 1.045–1.100, FG 1.005–1.015, 4.5–12% ABV, 6–30 IBU, 4–25 SRM

BJCP 29D Grape Ale, elsewhere

OG 1.059–1.075, FG 1.004–1.013, 6–8.5% ABV (4.5–12.5% allowed), 10–30 IBU, 4–8 SRM

First brewed

Birrificio Montegioco and Birrificio Barley, 2006–2007

Classic examples

Montegioco Open Mind; Barley BB5–BB10; Birrificio del Forte Il Tralcio; Luppolajo Mons Rubus

Sources

Checked October 30, 2026.

1. X3. Italian Grape Ale, 2021 Beer Style Guidelines, Appendix B — Beer Judge Certification Program
2. 29D. Grape Ale, 2021 Beer Style Guidelines — Beer Judge Certification Program
3. BB10 — Birrificio Barley
4. Il Tralcio — Birrificio del Forte