8

Sianowato ciut oborowe nieco owocowe kapinke lambikowe, kwasnosc umiarkowana, troszke slodyczy... ryli b cacy, 3.9? Ciut ciut octu

7.6

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5

Bottle looks simple but really good. Beer in the glass copper coloured, small head. Intense fruity sourish aroma, notes of apricot. Starts quite sour, with some interesting woody notes. Also fine fruity hints of apricot, some berries, well balanced. Finish less sour, well balanced woody. Nice one!

8.4

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 9.5

The basic, non-fruited version of Alvinne’s 1000th batch, a limited one-off – and necessarily so, as the malt bill seems to have been totally random and not registered anywhere so exact reproduction will be an impossibility… Boiled for six hours and aged on French wine barrels for half a year. Thanks to Loik for the bottle! Thin but ‘finely’ mousy, irregular, pale greyish white head consisting of a retaining ring, tiny dots of lacing around the glass and ‘islands’ of mousse in the middle; warm, ‘automny’ ruddy-hued amber robe with a coppery tinge, misty with eventually a suspension of minute yeast bits throughout, bit brownish-tinged with sediment. Very classic, rich Alvinne aroma, taking me back to lovely memories of Alvino and other early sours they made, but ‘updated’ to their current perfect mastery of their Morpheus house yeast; teeming with fruity esters and wood, I get fermenting plum, overripe gooseberry and Japanese wineberries, blue grapes and actual red wine from the Saint-Emilion barrels, redcurrant, sour yoghurt, lots and lots of soaking wet oak wood, strong red apple, fresh orange flesh even, raspberry vinegar, ‘natural’ rosé wine, soaking bread, caramel below. This rich and deep aroma is perfectly reflected in the mouth: a ton of fruity esteriness, varying from purple gooseberry and freshly cut red apple to blue plum and nectarine, sweet in its core but beautifully balanced with sour edges, not too sharply acidic, but thoroughly lactic and yoghurty, thus maintaining high drinkability; carbonation remains softish, mouthfeel is smooth, juicy and vinous at the same time, with some powderiness which obviously increases in the end due to the yeast residue. Sweetbready and even caramelly malt sweet core (the caramelly effect no doubt resulting from the excessively long boil of six hours!), covered under ongoing fruitiness and dried by soft, vinous tartness, while wood aspects get stronger and stronger, with eventually a lot of soaking wet, vanilla-ish oak rising up retronasally – tannic effects are there and help to further dry the finish, but only in a subtle way, so that the wood here seems to give more aroma than tannic flavour. ‘Rustic’, dusty old barrels filled to the brim with all kinds of fruit (grapes, plum, apple, nectarine, berries), some pleasant earthy-bready yeastiness and even a touch of ‘meatiness’ from the proteins adding another layer to an already complex beer. Top quality sour (as usual from Alvinne these days), worthy of celebrating the occasion I’d say – now for that apricot version!

8

Nice! Typical Alvinne!