Before anyone gets the wrong idea, Bloody Butcher is corn, not a threat. It's a variety of heritage dent corn with deep red kernels, grown for generations across Appalachia, and Fonta Flora Brewery has built a mixed-culture ale around it that leans fully into the region's agricultural history rather than away from it.
Mixed-culture brewing is a patient process, relying on a blend of yeast and bacteria rather than a single clean strain, which tends to produce something more layered and unpredictable than a standard ale, in the best way. Pairing that process with heritage corn, an ingredient with real roots in the area Fonta Flora calls home, gives this one a sense of place that a lot of beers only pretend to have.
Morganton, North Carolina's Fonta Flora has spent years working directly with heritage grains, treating them less like a novelty ingredient and more like a genuine ongoing project, and Bloody Butcher fits neatly into that body of work. It's the kind of beer that rewards knowing a little bit about what's actually in the glass.
Available starting July 10th, so this one lands right as the ink on Fonta Flora's latest heritage-grain outing is drying.
If the name still throws you, just remember the only thing getting harvested around here is corn.