La Cotta Cottina
Società Agricola Colleverde

The taste was decent - what I would expect from a European beer. Either I messed up royally when I poured it or I got a bad bottle. It was full of floaties that didn't affect the taste, but definitely set back the overall experience.

330ml frosted green bottle - subtitled 'birra chiara', which just means 'pale beer', and with the description of 'high fermentation', which I take to mean top-fermented, some sort of Euro pale ale had to fit the bill.

This beer pours a slightly hazy, pale golden yellow colour, with three fingers of puffy, densely foamy, and sort of creamy bone-white head, which leaves some random swathes of chunky landform lace around the glass as it slowly recedes.

It smells of bready, crackery pale malt, earthy yeast, crisp apple and fleshy pear fruit notes, and leafy, grassy, and pleasantly floral hops. The taste is more of the same, a nice grainy, semi-sweet bready pale malt, understated yeast, kind of muddled drupe fruit, a touch of citrus rind, and still peppy earthy, leafy, and grassy hops.

The bubbles are fairly soft, but still pretty active in their wide-ranging frothiness, the body a sturdy middleweight, and quite smooth, with a timid airy creaminess arising as things warm up a tad. It finishes well off-dry, the mostly sweet pale malt still swimming amongst a heady German-style meadow-friendly hoppiness.

Kind of a blend of generic (in a good way) Euro pale ale, and German Pils hops, which makes this yet another hybrid to come out of Italian craft brewing circles. Overall, tasty, and weirdly beguiling - I could certainly hit a sixer of this come summer patio season, but only for the dear single bottle price, I fear that shall never come to pass.