Birrificio Vetra: Birra di strada

Meet Vetra’s team of Milanese city-slickers, now in their tenth year of enjoying the global reach and influence of old-school craft beer.

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Robyn Gilmour

Photos:
Birrificio Vetra

Saturday 22 August 2026

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This article is from

Italy

issue 134

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Far from the idyllic, pastoral settings enjoyed by Italy’s agricultural breweries, the majority of its craft breweries can be found on unremarkable industrial estates, and on the outskirts of cities. The exception, perhaps, is Vetra, which is deeply embedded in the alternative, underground subculture of Milan. Well, kind of. The five friends that founded Vetra in 2016 are all active participants in the city’s punk, metal, and skate scenes in one way or another, hence the brewery’s tagline: birra di strada, meaning ‘street beer’. Vetra is all about enjoying the rhythm of the city, whether that be clamorous or mellow, mainstream or countercultural.

When I speak with Gabriele Cucinella, he’s busy. To be more specific, he’s trying to organise last minute refrigeration for the brewery’s annual music festival which, at the time of our call, is just two days away, and set to coincide with the hottest weekend in Milan for 23 years. “Hopefully not where we are, but other areas of Milan are expected to reach 42°C, which is really intense and not normal for us here in the north of Italy. In the south, they’re used to it, but here we’re accustomed to it being a whole 10°C cooler than this, for this time of year. We don't know how to cope with this, it's crazy.” It is crazy, though I’m sure Vetra will cope given the stockpile of beer on standby to quench punters’ thirsts.

In Gabriele’s telling, Vetra really started with Stefano Simonelli. Though Gabriele, Ottavio Nava, Stefano Maggi and Andrea Paci — the brewery’s other four founders — were all hard-core craft beer fans in 2016, Stefano was the brewer, and a renowned brewer at that. He spent ten years at Birrificio Italiano, the inventors of the Italian pilsner, then a further number of years freelancing at different breweries, and even did a short stint at Thornbridge. Meanwhile, Gabriele, Ottavio and Stefano were building an advertising agency from the ground up, and opening offices across Europe.

PHOTO: Stefano Simonelli, the founder

They sold the company at the same time that Stefano was looking for investors to fund his own brewing project; the stars aligned, friendships were formed, and together Vetra’s first four founders put together a business plan that would allow them to open a brewery in 2016. It was at this point that Vetra's fifth and final partner, Andrea Paci, joined the team, bringing with him a wealth of hospitality know-how, earned by running his own bars on Lake Como, and a cocktail bar in San Moritz.

“The idea, basically, was to start a brewery that is accessible to everyone,” says Gabriele. “What connects all of our beers is that they are very drinkable. It doesn’t matter if it’s a pilsner or a double IPA or a New Zealand IPA, we try to interpret all styles in the most drinkable way possible, and that’s something we’ve always been true to.” Vetra’s commitment to accessibility is admirable, but as a brewery founded by long-time craft beer enthusiasts, one just has to scratch the surface to uncover Vetra’s nerdy and experimental side. “We invested in a big production — we’ve had a 40 hl brew house from the beginning. Stefano designed it with a company that specialised in wine production plants, and which wanted to enter the beer industry. Part of the deal was that they’d fabricate the equipment if Stefano worked together with the engineers developing the software and the structure of the brewhouse. It worked out well because ten years on, it’s still pretty much like new, and continues to be on the forefront of today’s technologies. It’s automatic, the malt mill is connected to the brewhouse, and it’s pretty easy to operate, which was important to us given we’re such a small team — we’re just ten people.”

Also interesting is Vetra’s emphasis on collaboration, and the positive effect that international influence can have on a country’s beer scene. “Three years ago we started a special project called Wondercraft, which is basically an international collaboration programme,” says Gabriele. “We do five beers every year, usually with four international breweries and one Italian brewery. We’ve brewed with American breweries, Chinese breweries, British as well. We did a beer with Siren last year. The next one that is going to be at the London Craft Beer Festival is a three-way collaboration with a Mexican brewery — Fábrica Cervecera Bucareli from Mexico City — and Pretty Decent, from the UK. It's going to be called Caminha Madness, and is a tribute to our favourite beer festival, which is in Caminha, Portugal.”

Gabriele says travel is the best part of his job, and points out that you’re never alone in the world when you work in craft beer — “every time we travel somewhere, for any reason, we probably know a brewer in that city, and end up on a night out with friends.” If that sense of closeness and connection isn’t born of city-living, then I don’t know what is.

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