Fonta Flora Brewery has taken one of brunch's most reliable crowd-pleasers and turned it into a beer, fermenting a white ale with fresh oranges and conditioning it on Earl Grey tea and coriander. Mimosa City is essentially the good part of a Sunday morning, distilled into something you can drink well past noon without anyone questioning your choices.
White ales already lean toward citrus and spice as a style, so building one specifically around a mimosa's flavor profile is less of a stretch than it might sound. Fresh oranges bring the bright, familiar sweetness, while Earl Grey tea contributes a faint bergamot note that mimics the bubbly sophistication of the original cocktail, and coriander rounds the whole thing out with the gentle spice a good witbier depends on.
Morganton's Fonta Flora clearly isn't afraid of a cheeky concept, but the actual execution here relies on real technique, tea conditioning and citrus fermentation aren't exactly beginner moves. It's a beer built to be fun first, but backed by enough craft that it holds up past the novelty of the name.
Available starting July 10th as a fresh batch, this is the rare beer that might actually be appropriate to order before noon.
Brunch is temporary. Mimosa City, at least until the batch runs out, is not.