Fellowship Ale 2019 n° 5: Barrels Out Of Blond
Brouwerij Alvinne in Moen, West Flanders, Belgium 🇧🇪
Belgian Style - Tripel Regular|
Score
7.54
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This one is my absolute favorite. It's great in it's simplicity, yet so complex. A Belgian style farmhouse tripel, brett, Morpheusyeast and a Vermouth barrel. That, time and that magic Alvinne juju. At Alvinne, we are storytellers, what a great story this beer tells.
Oh, and about those Barrels out of B(l)ond, pretty sure many Fellows will love this story as well ... The Dwarves are captured by the Elves and brought before the Elven-king, but Bilbo evades discovery by using the Ring. The Dwarves refuse to tell Thranduil why they were in the forest, and are locked up in separate cells as a result. Bilbo, invisible, wanders Thranduil’s halls until hatching a plan. He discovers that barrels of wine, sent by the men of Lake-town, periodically enter the castle through an underground river, and the Elves return the empty barrels in the same manner. On the night of a great feast, he frees the Dwarves and loads them into empty barrels. He and the Dwarves then float up the river to a town of raft-elves, who then send the barrels on the way to Lake-town.
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Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8.5 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5
Shared bottle at home, thanks Maakun! Clear golden with white head. Sweet malts, citrus, overripe bananas, prunes, gluey, yeasty, some hayey bretty horseblanket. Medium sweet and sour, light bitter. Medium body and soft carbonation.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8.5 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5
Bottle shared. Clear golden with small white head. Sweet malts, soft fruit yoghurt, vermouth, oak, sour lemonade, nice vermouth herbs, vanilla, a touch of funk. Medium sweet and sour, light bitter. Solid medium bodied. Unique beer, I like it a lot!
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 8
Vermouth barrel aged blonde sour ale, from a 75 cl bottle that was part of last year's Fellowship by Alvinne. Mousy, snow white, irregularly edged, medium thick head on an initially lightly hazy, deep warm golden blonde beer with peachy tinge, clouded and darker blonde with sediment. Aroma of unripe nectarine, gooseberry, vanilla-like oak wood, white yoghurt, lemon zest, sour grapes, raw pineapple, mandarin juice, apple peel, damp earth and only very vaguely some spicy vermouth aspects. Crisp and tart, estery onset, unripe citrus fruit mingled with green plums and gooseberries, medium carbonated with a supple, soft body. Bready malt soil dried by lactic sourness, lots of 'yellow-green' fruit lingering about to a complex finish with drying woody tannins, a vinous touch and a dry earth note; vanilla-scenting oak wood is apparent retronasally, while the apple peel, mandarin and gooseberry effects never lose their strength. Great and perfectly balanced, streamlined sour ale, Phi-like but indeed with an extra layer of complexity, even though the vermouth effect remains very subtle - on the brink of being unnoticeable, in fact. I must admit that I expected a bit more 'oomph' from a Fellowship sour, but there is no doubt that this one is made to perfection, once again illustrating how well Alvinne has learned to master its Morpheus yeast strain in the past years.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 9
Bottle shared with Elie. Hazy blond colour, white foam. Complex tripel with vinous notes, sweet, some spices. Very well balanced.
Great!