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THE GLOBAL CULTURAL BAROMETER ILLUSTRATIONS BY SÉBASTIEN THIBAULT
Cultural MRI Beer, techno and street art – it’s Rome, but not as you know it, says Lee Marshall
CULTURAL MRI The Eternal City brews the new.
MEME Who wears the trousers in tango?
ART AGONY UNCLE Advice from our expert.
ARS LONGA Talking the talk.
SCI-ART A question of karma.
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ome is a city whose cultural points of reference are rooted in the past, in emperors and popes, in baroque palazzos and overpriced Via Veneto cafes peddling tired Dolce Vita clichés. But something new is brewing in the Eternal City. In one case, the brewing is happening quite literally. At Birstrò, in the city’s buzzy, offpiste Pigneto neighbourhood, Claudio Angelilli makes beers, like golden ale Prima, to serve on the premises. His is the only true brewpub within the city limits, but it’s part of a craft beer movement that Rome has been nurturing, one expressed today in a swathe of new pubs with selections of micro-brewery beers that run into the dozens. For Angelilli, it’s paradoxically the long Roman love affair with
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