Steinbock
Fonta Flora Brewery

Clear, amber color with a medium‑sized, off‑white head. The aroma offers toasted caramel malt, dried fruits, fresh bread, and a subtle smoky nuance that adds depth. The flavor is rich and malty, leaning moderately sweet, with a gentle floral bitterness that provides a clean, satisfying finish. A very well‑crafted beer.

 

Stunningly clear, dark amber body; dense carbonation; thick head, pale khaki appearance, fairly dense and long-lasting with a semi-creamy top. Very nice lightly sweet character balanced with a delicate caramel note. Wonderfully balanced taste; excellent malt backbone, rich with toasted caramel qualities; an interesting mineral undertone; subdued herbal hop presence. Heavy body; smooth mouthfeel; light stickiness.

This well-balance beer exudes nice complexity and refined balance across the board. A delight to drink!

ABV: 8.1%; pouring temperature: 46.2 °F; canning info: 01/14/26
Source: Tavour

 

12oz can. Bottom date stamp reads 'CANNED ON 01/24/23'.
Mostly clear, dark amber colored body. Brief lasting off white head. No lacing.
Aroma of caramel, light smoke, and prune/raisin.
Taste is sweet and made complex with a little smoke. Flavors of caramel, toffee, tea, apple, prune, and raisin. The smoke lingers into the aftertaste with the sweet caramel and fruit.
More than medium mouth feel, with some stickiness. Higher ABV% is well hidden, with a little sting if the beer is held in the mouth before swallowing. Good carbonation.
Well crafted combination of sweet caramel malts, sweet fruit, and smoke.

Murky opaque brown body, huge tan head. Sweet old world malt meets smoke with tones of dark bread, caramel and a whisper of raisin. Taste leans sweeter with a cola like undercurrent in the maltwork, otherwise the same, the smoke has a strong presence without turning acrid. Feel is malty much more than smoke is felt, smooth and medium-light bodied. Love the increase in steinbiers I am seeing

Poured at fridge temp. Pours a nice brown/reddish with an inch of head. The nose is full of toffee, biscuits, malts, stone fruit, a very slight hint of smoke, and light hops.

The taste is really nice. sweeter than I expected from the nose. Nice plum, raisin, slight maple, toffee, sourdough bread. The slightly smoky note from the nose appears here on the taste, but it's subtle. Definitely a malty beer. I'm really enjoying it!

The mouthfeel is fairly light to medium bodied. The aftertaste is mostly a light sweet toffee. The alcohol really isn't detectable on this one.

 

12-ounce can purchased at Uptown Beer Co. in Beaverton, OR. No date stamp. Poured into a nonic half-pint glass. Label indicates the ABV is 8%, while BeerAdvocate and the Fonta Flora website both put it at 8.1%.

Look:
This beer is a gorgeous deep amber-brown color with orange-amber highlights. A careful pour raises a finger of rich eggnog-colored foam which dissipates rather quickly and leaves only spotty lacing behind.

Smell:
Starts with rich, sweet malt, followed up with a rather aggressive punch of alcohol. It has an undercurrent of caramel and dense brown bread, along with notes of cherry cola and black tea. A little floral hop character breaks through as the beer warms.

Taste:
It's even sweeter than the nose promised. Starts off densely malty with prominent flavors of caramel and toasted brown bread. Cherry notes are more prominent than in the nose, and are complimented by a bit of orange peel. Remains sweet into the finish, which is dominated by malt, Grape Nuts cereal, and some dark brown sugar. Floral hops attempt to curtail the sweetness with a little earthy bitterness but don't make much headway.

Feel:
Medium-heavy body with smooth texture that's broken up by low-to-moderate carbonation. Slight alcohol warmth at the end, but nothing I wouldn't expect from an 8% beer.

Overall:
Steinbiers are pretty rare. It takes a particular kind of dedication to use hot stones to bring wort to a boil, and I'm happy to support that brand of craziness. Especially when the results are this tasty. Fonta Flora Steinbock is sweeter than I prefer, but has good malt depth, richness, and tasty caramel notes.

Purchased at The Bruin in New Bern, NC.
Love the literary reference and the hot granite rocks.
Lighter in taste, color, feel, flavor than expected, but a delicious and bodacious brew.
Subtle and masterfully crafted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pours a clear like a shinny penny smell is faint. Taste is sweet rasin fruit cake like and little cloying and little earth like funk.

Over all missed the mark I was looking for malt and bread toasty notes

Pours into a half liter stein a deep copper/bronze with a full one finger off white creamy head,love the rich color and creamy head.Caramel malts and cherry wood aromas along with a bit of fruit cake.Caramel and dark fruits on the palate although there is a drying almost spicy note into the finish.I get a slight star anise flavor in the finish as I drink more but it never gets overly sweet and stays quite drinkable.A well made NC Doppelbock here.

Look: It pours cooper in color with a slightly off white head. Head retention is good.

Smell: There are strong malt aromas of toast. There is a low plum note in the background.

Taste: There are strong toast flavors with plenty of maillard like elements. There are some very low plum notes in the background. There is also a very low herbal flavor with some alcohol notes.

Feel: It has a medium full body with a bit of a dry finish.

Overall, a strong malty rich beer with plenty of toasty elements and maillard elements.