Autumnal IPA Puts Idaho 7's Black-Tea Edge on a Red Malt Base

Fonta Flora Brewery does not release beers. It surfaces them.

The word runs through the Morganton brewery's release notes - "Surfaced 09.04," "Next to Surface" - and it is not only a stylistic tic. The brewery takes its name from a multicultural sharecropping village that sat on the banks of the Linville River until 1916, when a power company dammed the river and put the settlement under what is now Lake James. A brewery named for a drowned town picking "surface" as its verb for a new beer is worth a second look.

What surfaced on September 4 is Autumnal IPA, a 6.5 percent West Coast-style red India Pale Ale dry-hopped with Citra, Simcoe and Idaho 7.

The red IPA is a less common sight than it once was. Hazy IPAs took over the shelf space, and a hoppy beer built on caramel and crystal malt asks something different of its hops: rather than sitting on a clean pale base where every aroma reads at full volume, they have to work with a sweeter, darker, more assertive foundation. Not every hop bill improves in that setting. This one is chosen like the brewery knew that.

Citra and Simcoe are the familiar West Coast pairing, grapefruit and passionfruit against pine and resin. Idaho 7 is the one carrying the beer. It is a comparatively recent American variety, and alongside the tropical fruit and citrus it is known for, it brings a distinctly earthy, black-tea character that sets it apart from its neighbors in a dry hop. That note tends to get lost on a pale base. On caramel malt it has something to grip.

The can art follows the same seasonal logic. A figure sits inside a burst of red leaves, with the three hop varieties printed on small badges around the base of the label, and the brewery photographed it on a bed of dried petals and marigold heads.

Autumnal IPA has been out since September 4. Fonta Flora distributes through wholesale accounts and directs availability questions to local account representatives, and pours at its three locations: downtown Morganton, Optimist Hall in Charlotte, and Whippoorwill Farm.