A 60-YEAR LONG LEAP
The threads of our family story re-emerge in the playful convivium of a toast with Birra Salento. In every glass, in every sip and in the delicate foam there are our time, work and dreams.
1963
In 1963, Fernando Zecca, Maurizio’s father – today, Maurizio is at the head of Birra Salento – wrote to his family and friends from Fribourg, in Switzerland. He was working at a local brewery and dreamt of going back to his wife and sons, whom he left in Leverano.
I work in the brewery with my brother Romano and there are also other villagers and women from Leverano working in the beer industry. Our job is to load and unload full and empty beer cases.
20 years after that letter, Fernando passed away; Maurizio was a teenager and had a family to support. Luckily, Fernando passed down to his son his strength and tenacity.
Today, Maurizio is the helmsman of a team composed by many collaborators. The small company that was established then – between lofts and cellars- is now referred to as Mebimport, a real leader in the distribution of beers throughout Southern Italy.
1983
2008
It was with this passion that our family mapped out the beginning of a new adventure: a craft brewery in the heart of Salento.
Birra Salento was born in 2008 with a straightforward name: a brand that can narrate the land. Wherever Negramaro was born and the vine is queen, craft beer will be produced. The first-born of our brewery – Beggia, Pizzica, and Taranta – transport us on a journey that bring us home, from a all Salentine but beyond regional borders.
Our barley comes from a long period of research from the DisTeBa at the University of Salento.
The study was carried out in both the laboratory and in the field and led to the autentification of two local cultivars. After 3 long years of research, in 2016, we celebrated the first harvest. The barley had grown few meters far from the place where Birra Salento was being born.
2013
2017
The dream and challenge of our family finally become craft beer.
Birra Salento is born! Old and new, tradition and innovation, theory and practice, sensations and actions, are the invisible ingredients of a magic combination that pours into the glasses the result of three generations’ hard work.
Now Birra Salento produces 12 different beer styles divided into 3 lines – Tradition, Passion and Challenge. The key to a dream that came to be true is the blending of advanced techniques, high-quality products selected with care by brewers and researchers, a team made by many collaborators, but first and foremost a strong, tight family, loyal to its origins and with a tireless leader at its head.
TODAY
ONE OF THE LARGEST PLANTS IN ITALY,
BY EXTENSION AND AVANT-GARDE
