8

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 8.5 | Flavor - 7.5 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5

Bottle shared. Hazy amber with nice beige head. Sour plums, balsamico, almonds, wheat, soft red currants, vanilla. Very fruity but also soft funk and barrel notes. Very sour, solid medium sweet, light bitter. Almost full bodied. Quite sour, but very tasty. P

7.4

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 7.5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7

Pours dark, relatively unclear, red with an amberbrown base. Small white head leaving a persistent layer of foam, and noticeable lacing. Scent is oak, very mild acetic acid. Decent amount of fruityness. Taste is fairly acidic, mildly acetic. Fairly full on the fruits, fleshy, médium oaky. Sharp, yet fairly thick body. Médium carbo. Perhaps a tiny tad to tart for drinkability, but balanced as a sipper.

8.1

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

Sloeberry, a kind of wild plum (and therefore a drupe rather than a true berry), has been used in European brewing for centuries - before the Lager revolution, even Germany had sloeberry beers, centuries ago. Yet this fruit, endemic to large parts of northern and western Europe, has been largely forgotten since, and not many brewers have applied it anymore. Alvinne is an exception; I have found wild sloeberries in the 'Flemish Ardennes' region many years ago and indeed this shrub grows in the wild mostly in the southern parts of Flanders, making it all the more interesting (in terms of 'terroir') that Alvinne picks these fruits by hand each year to apply them to various sour ales. One of their core sours, the old Phi, was given the sloeberry treatment in this one, creating this SloePhi. Quite a gusher, I had to clean up after opening it, but fortunately the gushing stopped rather abruptly too - but be warned anyway. Pale lilac-tinged off-white, medium, mousy but eventually opening, irregular head on a misty deep grenadine red beer with rosy-fuchsia tinge. Rich aroma of unripe plum and cooked prunes (the sloeberries, in other words, and 'thickly' so), elderberry juice, ripe blackberries, sour fruit yoghurt, green tree leaves, sourdough, very dry and oxidized red wine, musty cellar, soaking wet oak wood, freshly cut sorrel, stewing rhubarb, cooked sweet cherries, blood orange juice, dusty attic. Tart and crisp, utterly fruity onset, deeply soaked in the sloeberries with an evidently very plum-like effect but much more astringent, as if unripe green plums and ripe blue plums were combined with a slight emphasis on the first; lots of 'side aspects' of sour cherry, blackberry, elderberry and redcurrant as well, adding further sourness which at first is a bit puckering, but mellows down further down the road. These astringent fruit peel and rich plum wine effects heavily accompany a slender, sourdoughy base, with minerally carbonation effects providing some lightness; lemony, even lip-smacking sour effects are there, but the sheer fleshiness of the fruit absorbs quite a lot of it, as in an 'overdosed' cherry lambic. Rather complex finish, combining woody tannins with sloeberry peel astringency and sharp lactic and lemony tartness on the one hand with soothing bready yeastiness and maltiness as well as fleshy cooked fruit juiciness on the other hand, topped with a 'wild' aspect of dry forest floor and dusty attic. A mildly warming alcohol glow adds something vaguely Glühwein-ish, but without the heat. Too bad for the gushing, but this is soon forgotten when one dives into the beer: this is rich, powerful and elegant all at once, driven by the sheer juiciness of these sloeberries, which many a beer geek probably isn't that familiar with. This beer wants to make me take my car and drive to the exact same foresty and rather idyllic spot in the Flemish Ardennes where, almost three decades ago, I saw sloeberry shrubs carrying their fruit in late summer - and when a beer brings back memories like that, you can bet it's usually a damn good beer. I need to drink Alvinnes more often!

8.9

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

29/VIII/20 - 33cl bottle from Geers (Oostakker), shared @ camping (Clermont-Ferrand, France), BB: III/2023, LOT 1109 (2020-839)

Pretty clear red purple beer, big dense creamy pink head, pretty stable, adhesive, leaving a nice lacing in the glass. Aroma: fruity, berries, some cough syrup, vinegar notes, blackcurrant jam. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: very fruity, lots of sloe berries, some bitter tannins, vinegar acidity. Aftertaste: dry, fruity, lemon acidity, fruity, berries, some tannins, lovely beer, dry, little bitter, some cough syrup, nice acidity.

8

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8.5 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 8

Huge, fluffy pink head over deep cyclamen to cardinal-red beer. Intense, red-fruity nose. Hints of rainwater. Very tart red fruit in the flavour, obviously wild berries, bit lemony. Long lasting fruitflavours, not changing, but seriously complex. Ultra tart, dry out effect, but quite (fruit)slick. Medium carbonation, stable head, acidthinning. A very good one, chaps!

8

Damn... Topperke van Alvinne!

8.9

Appearance - 10 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 9.5

Bottle as a gift from the brewer. Many thanks! Deep dark purple colour, pink foam. Medium carbonation. Very fruity nose, lots of berries, wood, wine, lactic sourness. Very well balanced. Great!