Bottle. Pours a cloudy deep amber with a tan head that dissipates to the edges. Aroma has a good amount of acid with some red fruits with a bit of light grains underlying. Flavor has a decent amount of dark fruits with a growing acid notes and a bit of light grains supporting.

Bottle from Corti Bros. Pours coppery gold with a transient white head. Tart floral aroma with fruit notes. med body. Flavor is fruit/floral with a tart/sour aspect. It’s rather mild for Alvinne IMHO, but it’s quite nice. Recommended.

Bottle at Drie Dorstige Herten. Aroma of tart, grain and barnyard. Funky taste of mild tart, caramel, horseblanket and some honey. Liked it.

On tap at Øst, Stavanger. Pours cloudy amber without head. Aroma of honey, caramel, boiled vegetables. Taste fruity sour with some sweetness.

Bottled@NUETnigEnough, Brussels. Hazy orange colour, mediumsized off-white creamy head. Aroma is sour, wooden, some floral and mild berries to it. Flavour is quite lactic along with wood, some sourness and berries. Long sour aftertaste.

One of Alvinne’s sour beer experiments bearing a Greek letter on the label. Bottle from Van Eetvelde in Lokeren. Loose and coarse, milky snow white, loosely retaining head over an initially clear, deep and warm, peachy orange blonde beer, hazy and approaching amber with deposit. Aroma puts me off in first instance: I get a strong smell of, excusez le mot, slurry pit, hiding less offensive odours of yoghurt, gooseberries, overripe peach, moscatel wine, field flowers, bread crust, red raspberries and orange peel. Estery onset with a lot of sour gooseberries and redcurrant, hints of raw pineapple and red apple peel, lactic sour cream acidity drying a bit from the start, lean and supple body with low carbonation, maybe a bit too low, lending it a rather thin feel for a beer this strong; a bit caramelly and gently sweetish in the middle, leading to a sour and sweet finish (almost like an oud bruin but with less ’dark maltiness’) which continues the pairing of malt sweetness and drying tartness, and adds a deeply buried but persisting, earthy, somewhat oily ’old hop’ bitterness. A warming, gin-like alcohol glow ensues, but for a 10% ABV blonde beer, remains fairly well hidden. The taste is far from bad if you’re into sour ales, but I cannot get past this hideous slurry pit aroma, I’m afraid, making this a miss for me. Heck, which microbe did they use to mix with the Saccharomyces? Escherichia coli? Without this ghastly odour, this would have been a very good sour ale, but in this form: no thanks. Perhaps I just had a bad bottle, though... But if you do want a blonde Belgian sour, I would recommend Petrus Aged Pale way over this.

At Julia's tastings

10 oz pour on draft at GBD. Hazy orange with off-white head. Aromas of floral notes, tart acidic notes. Tastes of vinegar, tart acidic notes, stone fruit. Medium-light body with a dry finish.