0.5l bottle. Clear dark amber body with a pearl head. Aroma of caramel, apple cider vinegar, candi sugar, oak, mold and lemon zest. Taste of toast, candi sugar, vinegar, oak, mold and apples and lemon zest. Apparently Fred makes Freddy better. Very nice beer.

On tap at Mikkeller in Warsaw. Rust pour with purple highlights, only a little ivory lacing rather than a real foam. Nose: balsamic overall, dried fruit, Porto wine, red fruit, hint of smokiness. Mouth: clean start, one way forward easy to drink sour (+), sweet cherry driven mouthfeel with a lemony overall. Very peculiar. Very good too.

Bottle. Has a dark reddish brown colour with a light beige head. Aroma of forest floor, heather, balsamico, leather, beef jerky and brow sugar. Flavour of leather, brown sugar, black currant and vinegar. Has a slick mouth feel, medium body and a light bitterness. Well-balanced, tasteful and solid.

Bottle from eebria online. Deep reddish brown with a tan head. Aroma and taste malty sweet to fruity sour. Full body.

Blend of Alvinne's own Cuvée Freddy, basically a hopless, wine barrel aged version of Mano Negra, and their interpretation of Hair of the Dog's classic Fred, of which they received the recipe after Hair of the Dog's second participation in Alvinne's biannual craft beer festival. I was present at the brewery when this blend was created and the proportions of the two beers were discussed and we had some disagreement whether blending two such different ales would be a good idea to begin with, with their basic characters clashing a bit when actually poured together in one glass; so I decided to wait a bit with opening this 50 cl bottle (which shows both's Hair of the Dog's and Alvinne's logos) so that both parts got the chance to better merge with one another. Now opening it at cellar temperature and at eight and a half months of age, I'm very curious what finally came out of this experiment... Forms a thick, membranous-lacing, creamy eggshell-white, densely structured head which only very slowly thins out in the middle, crowning an initially cristal clear, gorgeously deep, pure and warm copper-coloured beer with deep bronze glow and fine strings of lively sparkling rising up from the bottom, sustaining the head - a visually beautiful beer in any case. Shifts to a hazy, more vermillion reddish-tinged bronze with sediment. Strong, mouthwatering bouquet of hazelnuts, passionfruit juice, fig compote, dusty attic, toffee, haystack, very old red wine, tawny port, rum-soaked raisins, candied lemon peel, old bookshelves and very old cardboard, fainter hints of balsamico, rotten tree leaves, dried bracket fungi, plum jam, wood glue, brown rum. Lovely juicy onset, a sweet core of fresh figs, yellow Sultana raisins and ripe pear dried by a thick edge of blackberry-like tartness - yet in all, and for an Alvinne sour ale, remaining relatively soft and delicately balanced with the sweetness, which even gets a brown sugary character and in the end, slightly seems to stick to the teeth. Soft carbonation, well-fit for a beer of this calibre; -rather thick, rounded, vinous mouthfeel, given extra body by this residual brown sugariness. Hazelnutty and caramelly malt core, quite big and bold, with that soft blackberry-like, yet persisting and adequately drying sourness continuing on the edges, with a slight balsamic vinegary touch to it in the end. Fruity esters, fig- and pear-like, play along till deep into the finish, where a toasty bitterish aspect shows up (the Cuvée Freddy?), aided by a deep, earthy hop bitter touch (the Fred?) - making for a balancing aspect against the sourish-sweetness. Woodiness galore in the finish as well, including a somewhat mellow but clear tannic dryness and that 'dusty attic' effect that vividly reminds me of a day at the brewery itself; glueish solventy notes are easily ignored when a soothing, port- and rum-like alcohol glow shows up right where it should show up best: in the very end, when this parade of sweet sugary candiedness, tart fruitiness, full maltiness, rustic 'dustiness' and tannic woodiness has passed by. End even after all this, the show isn't over, as the hop bitterness keeps lingering in the throat... This end result of the blending experiment, a kind of middle ground between quadrupel and 'oud bruin', reminds me in nothing of the freshly mixed samples I tasted at the brewery: I was hoping both components would entwine a bit, but they did so in such a great way that this ends up way better than I could ever hoped for. Boozy and, for an Alvinne, sweet alright, but so deep and delicious that even after many dozens of beers I had from this brewery, I am glad they are still able to pleasantly surprise me. Even if some of their bottlings and creations in the past were quite poor - unjustly ignoring the great things they already produced back then as well - I am, more than ever, convinced that they are now absolute world class in the modern sour ale department. Grab as many of these new Alvinnes as you can - chances are they might become as hyped as the great lambic brewers and geuze blenders of our small country one day.