Tap at Foeders. Hazy reddish orange amber with small white head. Lots of lactic sourness, grapes, light balsamico, apricot, vinegar, light oak. Very sour, medium sweet, light bitter. Medium bodied. Bit too sour.

Draft at Foeders, Amsterdam. Fairly hazy orange brown with a ring white head. Aroma of leather, oak, vinous notes, lactic and tart dark fruits. Flavour is light moderate sweet and heavy sour. Medium bodied with soft carbonation.

Sampled from a 0.5 @ Haandfest 2015. This is a really clouded looking this, a nice redness combined with the color brown? Not sure how to other vise describe the color of this. Looks nice and it has a thin sidesticking film on the sides. Mild tart sour nose, a red fruity raspberries sourness also and some lemon juice freshness. Perhaps a little mild, but definitly nice. Lots of that famous Alvinne sourness and tartness in the taste! Refreshing indeed. Almost sorrel soup with vinegar, wood, raspberries and sour apricots. It's thin oily in the mouth and quite soft on the carbonation. Nice one. 30.05.2015

Bottle 500ml @ gunnfryd 50th birthday tasting
Pours slighty hazy copper with a off-white head. Aroma has notes of malt, tartness, gooseberry, funk and brett. Taste is light sweet and heavy sour with a long sour, fruity and funky finish. Body is light, texture is thin to oily, carbonation is soft.

Grape beer with wild yeast aged on bourgogne barrels. Vintage bottle of 75 cl dating back to 2009, the year before Alvinne introduced its Morpheus yeast (a mix of wild Saccharomyces and lactic bacteria), so in this case, I assume some or other Brettanomyces has been used on top of standard top fermentation. Lot number is 281; since most sour beers age beautifully, I am very curious to find out what seven years of cellaring did to this one. Loose, pale greyish beige head consisting of tiny champagne-like bubbles, dissolving in seconds to almost nothing; pure mahogany colour (reddish brown rather than brownish red) with bronze hue, initially with vivid fizz, but calming down very quickly. Adding the deposit in the very end results in an almost coffee-like, very brown, murky robe. Musty, fruity, quite rich and attractive aroma: very old red wine, hazelnut, passion fruit, medlar, blue grape peel, dried orange peel, moist wood, dry forest floor and quite strong but pleasing mushroom, blackberry jam, almond, old dry ginger powder, stewed pear, wet leather (Brett!), balsamico, hint beef stock or horse steak. Estery, softly sour-fruity onset with nicely balancing subtle fruit sweetness, impressions of redcurrant, gooseberry, blackberry, passion fruit and still a very finely, very gently tingling carbonation despite the lack of head or visible fizz (I see older ratings here talking about overcarbonation, but aging has apparently solved this issue in the meantime). A soft, ’fluffy’, caramelly malt sweetness ensues evolving into a pleasant ’nuttiness’ with a very subtle bittering side effect matching well with the fruit sweetness and tartness, the latter of which dries the palate, but in a soft, non-astringent way, as in a classic ’oud bruin’ (Flemish red). Lovely woodiness creeps up in the end, old oak flavors yielding enjoyable retronasal tannins along with some faint varnish-like phenols and indeed, a retronasal aroma and taste of red wine thinly but unmistakably remains on the back of the tongue after swallowing, drying a bit further; hops are close to absent, as they should be in a sour ale. I love an oak aged sour beer and this is a good example for sure: it has this fruity tartness with a drying effect, but in a very elegant, soft way. The wild yeast effects lend it some mild funkiness but also in a gentle way, not overpowering the basic character of the beer or the red wine factor, which is played out very well. Sweet and sour work together in a perfectly balanced way - think Flemish red style ale. I think this seven year old bottle has aged with dignity and elegance and I am glad I tasted it. Goes well with the ’carbonades à la flamande’ (beef slowly stewed in beer) I’m preparing, too...

750 ml bottle. Deep amber body with a medium sized off-white head. Aroma is vinous with some funky acidity and hint of wood. Flavor is sweet malt and tart, acidic fruit. Some grapefruit, wood and balanced bitterness. Fine balanced body and long lasting complex sweet and sour aftertaste. Very nice.