Italy Legally Defines Birra Artigianale

Italy’s Law No. 154 of July 28, 2016, came into force on August 25, 2016, and introduced a legal definition of birra artigianale. Article 35 amended Italy’s earlier beer legislation by defining craft beer as beer produced by small independent breweries and not subjected, during production, to pasteurization or microfiltration. The law also defined a small independent brewery as one that is legally and economically independent from other breweries, uses its own production facilities, does not operate under license, and does not exceed an annual production of 200,000 hectoliters. This gave Italian craft beer a formal legal category and made independence, scale, and production method part of the official definition.