Pietra, which means "stone" in Italian (''petra'' is the Corsican equivalent) and is also known as "''A biera corsa''", is a brand of beer from the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

French island of

Corsica Corsica ( , Upper , Southern ; it, Corsica; ; french: Corse ; lij, Còrsega; sc, Còssiga) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 18 regions of France. It is the fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast of ...

History

The Pietra Brewery opened in 1996. The name "Pietra" comes from

Pietraserena Pietraserena is a commune in the Haute-Corse department of France on the island of Corsica. Population See also *Communes of the Haute-Corse department The following is a list of the 236 communes of the Haute-Corse department Departmen ...

, the Corsican home village of the brewery’s founder. Pietra beer is a 6%

ABV Alcohol by volume (abbreviated as ABV, abv, or alc/vol) is a standard measure of how much alcohol (ethanol) is contained in a given volume of an alcoholic beverage (expressed as a volume percent). It is defined as the number of millilitres (mL) o ...

amber beer, brewed from a mix of

malt Malt is germinated cereal grain that has been dried in a process known as " malting". The grain is made to germinate by soaking in water and is then halted from germinating further by drying with hot air. Malted grain is used to make beer, wh ...

and

chestnut The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. The unrelat ...

flour. Chestnuts have always been used in Corsica as a cereal, but it was necessary to carry out studies for many years to validate the qualities of chestnut flour. The high fermentability of chestnuts helps to maintain the beer's head and gives Pietra beer its golden colour. The annual production of Pietra beer is over 25,000

hectolitre The litre (international spelling) or liter (American English spelling) (SI symbols L and l, other symbol used: ℓ) is a metric unit of volume. It is equal to 1 cubic decimetre (dm3), 1000 cubic centimetres (cm3) or 0.001 cubic metre (m3). ...

Other beers brewed by Pietra

* Serena (5% ABV) has a very light head and is just slightly bitter. * Colomba is an un-pasteurized white beer perfumed with herbes du maquis ( strawberry tree, myrtle,

cistus ''Cistus'' (from the Greek ''kistos'') is a genus of flowering plants in the rockrose family Cistaceae, containing about 20 species (Ellul ''et al.'' 2002). They are perennial shrubs found on dry or rocky soils throughout the Mediterranean region ...

, and

juniper Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' () of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, from the Arcti ...

Corsica Cola

Pietra brewery has also produced Corsica Cola, a non-alcoholic

soft drink A soft drink (see § Terminology for other names) is a drink that usually contains water (often carbonated), a sweetener, and a natural and/or artificial flavoring. The sweetener may be a sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, fruit juice, a su ...

, since 2003.

References

Breweries of France {{business-org-stub