When I first heard of Fleurette beer and learned it had rose, citrus honey and black pepper I was immediately intrigued. I started to read about it I think on Jay's site that Vinnie Cilurzo was brewing a version of it with Agostino Arioli owner of Birrificio Italiano. I had the chance to sample the beer at the Russian River brewery in June and it surpassed my expectations. So I was pleased by being able to find some of the original in Atlanta.

It is odd that the the beer doesn't appear on the Birrificio Italiano website, even though there was a tag with both email and website over the top of the stopper. But the tag was a great way to present the information I thought as I sampled.

Another funny thing is no one seems to know exactly how to categorize the beer. Beer Advocate lists it both as a Saison and as a Belgian Pale ale. Because of the 3.8% alcohol level well below the range for both those styles I would think the BJCP category Belgian Specialty Ale would be best fit.

The ingredients list on the bottle are water, hops, barley, wheat and rye malts, roses, violets, elderberry, citrus honey and black pepper. Those alone indicate you are not in for an ordinary beer experience.

As I poured the beer it was highly aromatic and carbonated with a bit of haze from the unfiltered nature of the beer. The beer had a mellow coppery hue with the initial aroma of rose, citrus aroma with some honey character.

The beer had an almost champagne like qualities from the dry character to the effervescent character. But with more of a darker color and cloudiness than you would find in any champagne. As I drank it a lot of things in suspension became apparent as evidenced below.


It was refreshing, palette cleansing in a different way than yesterday's two beers. The beer had a wonderful complexity that really defies the current system of categories. I was pleased I had the chance to try it again.