8.9

Appearance - 10 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 10 | Overall - 8.5

Bottle @ home. Dark brown colour, creamy beige foam. Nose of dried fruit, figs, medlars, red wine. Taste is fruity, sweet (candy sugar) woody and vinous. Very well balanced. Great appearance and mouthfeel. Great beer!

8

THT. Dark brown with offwhite head. Sweet toasted malts, caramel, figs, dolmas, raisans, pannekoekenstroop. Very tasty. Over medium body and soft carb. Oily. Very lovely.

8.3

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8.5 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5

Bottle shared at THT September. Very dark brown with dark beige head. Massive figs, tobacco, raisins, sweet grapes, dried apple, vanilla, sweet milk chocolate, light brandy. Medium sweet and bitter. Almost full bodied with slight dry and boozy finish. Super tasty, but needs to be shared.

8.3

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8.5 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5

Pours very dark brown. Smell is mild, dark dry fruit. Taste is full, rich, sauternes, chocolate aspects. Very nice roasty touch. Surprised by how great this one turned out !

8.4

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5

One of the ‘third generation’ Fellowship beers by unsurpassed Belgian sour ale specialist Alvinne, but no sour ale this time: this is a barrel aged quadrupel, more specifically a special Cuvée de Mortagne variant – not aged on Pomerol barrels like the original Cuvée de Mortagne, but on Sauternes barrels, the sweet Bordeaux wines that have undergone a ‘pourriture noble’; moreover this Barrel Rider version is extra flavoured with medlars and fig leaves. Medium thick, moussy, shred-lacing, pale greyish beige head, slowly dissipating on a hazy chestnut brown beer with wine red hue and yellowish-beige flakes of protein floating around here and there. Intense aroma of caramel sauce, indeed the overripe medlar fruit I remember from my grandmother (and quite strongly so), lots of vanilla-scenting oak wood, cashew nuts, tawny port, candied dates, blue plums, brandy, clear herbal aspects from the fig leaves (somewhere in between green tree leaf and kitchen herbs – quite unique and idiosyncratic, though subtle). Sweet onset, mostly ‘real’ fruit in the form of sweet, almost ‘mushy’ medlar mixed with estery aspects of ripe plum, sour cherry and blackberry, with the latter likely representing a lactic tartness (intentional or not) that cuts through the sweetness, medium carbonated, full, supple mouthfeel. Toffeeish, brown-bready and caramelly maltiness, a tad resinous with lingering, brown sugar-like sweetness and medlar flavour, balanced by that tart undertone; herbal aspects appear in the finish, though this fig leaf aspect proves less strong retronasally than orthonasally and vanilla-like old oak wood prevails. A play of light earthy-bready notes, drying tannins against ongoing sweetness and fruitiness ensues, with light meaty aspects from those proteins at the edges, until everything is submerged in a sweet, soothing, warming, vinous Sauternes glow. Very complex quad “the Alvinne way” – some of these are among the best quadrupels I ever had and this one, with its special twists, is certainly Fellowship-worthy. I wonder what happens with this monumental beer after a few years of cellaring…

8

Lci