Although Italy is renowned for its excellent wines, there has been growing demand for artisan beers since the 1980s. In the place of famous brand lagers such as Peroni and Moretti, many Italians now prefer craft beer infused with local flavours and ingredients. After all, there’s something truly magical about pouring yourself a frothy pint that was brewed just down the road!
If you want to ask for a beer in Italian, the simplest and most polite phrase you can use is Vorrei una birra which means I would like a beer.
Vorrei una birra.
I would like a beer.
Vorrei is a verb that every student of Italian should learn right from the get-go, as it is used to make polite requests. It is the first-person singular conditional tense of volere (meaning “to want”), so it literally translates as “I would want”.
Vorrei can be followed directly by a noun, as in the case of this week’s phrase, or by another verb in its infinitive form. For example:
Vorrei bere una birra.
I would like to drink a beer.
If you want to be extra polite, it is advisable to add the expression per favore (please) to the end of the phrase.
Another way of posing the same question is Posso avere una birra, per favore? (Can I / May I have a beer, please?) with posso avere meaning “can/may I“.
Posso avere una birra per favore?
Can / May I have a beer please?
In Italy, beers are usually classified according to their colour:
- una birra bionda / chiara = a light beer
- una birra ambrata = an amber beer
- una birra rossa = a red beer
- una birra scura = a dark beer
A draught beer (or beer from the tap) is called una birra alla spina in Italian. They come in three sizes: piccola (small), media (medium) and grande (large). Sizes can vary but in general expect to get a 200-225 ml glass if you ask for a birra piccola, while a media is 330-400 ml and a grande is around 500 ml.
Vorrei una birra scura alla spina. – Piccola, media o grande? – Media, per favore.
I’d like a dark draught beer, please. – Small, medium or large? – Medium, please.
A bottled beer is una birra in bottiglia and a can of beer is una birra in lattina. A beer without alcohol is called una birra analcolica.
Heather Broster is a graduate with honours in linguistics from the University of Western Ontario. She is an aspiring polyglot, proficient in English and Italian, as well as Japanese, Welsh, and French to varying degrees of fluency. Originally from Toronto, Heather has resided in various countries, notably Italy for a period of six years. Her primary focus lies in the fields of language acquisition, education, and bilingual instruction.
