Fumata Bianca
High & Mighty Beer Co.

 

 

 

 

Hazy with a greenish hue to the straw color. Decent bar poured head. Some webby lace.

Corriander and creamed corn come to mind when I smell this beer.

There's a distinctive bandaid taste up front. The malt is pale with a hint of toast. The swallow is distractingly medicinal. Good hop bitterness in the aftertaste. Rich body with a low carbonation--my favorite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

22oz bottle served in a standard tapered glass. True to its name the beer is straw yellow in color, slightly hazy, with a substantial white head. Considerable aroma suggesting smoke, fresh rye bread, with a little yeasty quality, like perhaps a saison or biere de garde. Very promising. And, indeed, the flavor is dead on. There's a lot of flavor in this totally sessionable lager. It's well carbonated, and a very slight sourness brings some refreshment along with the bold grainy flavors of the rye, and the spicy clove flavors from the yeast. I would not have guessed this is a lager, though given the color and mouthfeel it makes total sense. The ABV is 4.5% which is a good thing because this thing is dangerously drinkable. Underrated and worth seeking out for fans of either roggenbier or rauchbier.

 

Nice looking sunny yellow color, hazy and opaque, with a bright white head of about a finger and a half. Good retention. Aroma was fairly lemony with more citrus and floral hops. A bit of herbal character and a mild smokey note. Tasted mostly bright citrus and lemon at first, some smoke. After it warmed up and especially the last sip of the glass, smoke was really strong. Feel was lighter bodied, somewhat effervescent with a bit of prickly carbonation.

Definitely a unique beer, something I've not had before, and wasn't bad.

 

Campfire light, strumming the guitar and smores on the way. Even though it's late winter, these are the memories that this smoked rye ale evokes upon the very first whiff.

But before that, the beer pours with a solid "bark" brown color and shows semi-opaque translucence. A creamy mid-statured head pulls from the dark ale with an semi-dense ivory cap. The foam retains most of the session and shows broken lace as the beer fades.

Smoky sweet aromas leap out first, and does so with moderate intensity. Chocolate, coffee, nuts, spicy peppercorn and charred barley husk gives a toast scent that stops just shy of roast. Burnt caramel and whipping cream offers a malt-forward balance over that of woody hop notes.

Similar in taste, the beer's sweetness rises on the front palate with caramel, toffee, and chocolate notes. But soon after, the chocolate turns to coffee, the toffee turns to walnut, and the earthy sweetness turns spicy and grain-like as it turns to mid-palate. Finishing spicy, dry, and lightly grainy, the hops shine through with mild pine resins and stemmy bite.

Medium-full on the tongue, the weight of the beer is creamy and malty- and it stays like that from the initial sip, until a mild quiver to finish. Wood-derived astringency and rye spice prickles lightly on the sides of the tongue and jaws to offer up one last tinge of aggression.

Fumata is a standard earthy porter that borrows the nicer attributes of American-style robust porters and London-style brown porters. The rye character shows a raw earthiness that supports the smoke flavor and aroma well- I just kinda wish there were more of it.