Arbor Brasserie Greff Blonde

Brewed by Arbor Brewing Company Pub & Eatery
Style: Sour Ale
Ann Arbor, Michigan USA

(750ml bottle, thanks Schroppfy) Cloudy light amber body topped by a scintilla of an off-white head. Aroma is medium sweet, some strawberry, sourness, funk. Taste is medium sweet, sour strawberry. Low carbonation, medium body, somewhat watery.

750ml corked bottle labeled bottled on March ’06. Poured a medium golden color with a small sized white head. Some small floaters. Aromas on the fruity side with light yeast. Tastes of citrus, fruity, light yeast, and some spices. This one was a pleasant surprise!

Murky deep golden hue develops a big effervescent head, ivory in colour. Hugely yeasty nose can’t but seduce me. Lots of brettanomyces flavour procure a slicing sourness punctuated with vibrant pineapple flavours. On parallel, estery bananas glow amongs the bubbly mask. Extreme attenuation leaves no residual sugar apparency. Further, the carbonation is monstrous, biting the tongue with crunching big bubbles. Light juiciness reminds slightly of white grapes, but the flavour is all yeast. There is little to no malt flavours and barely more hops, which removes from the interest and certainly does not speak of balance, but the nose is superbly focused in its wildness.

(750ml bottle, 2006 vintage) Pours a cloudy golden orange body with a medium off-white head. Aroma of barnyard, pineapple, melon, apricot, mustiness, and balsamic vinegar. Flavor of sourness, oak, fruit, and apple cider vinegar with a dry finish. Nice!

Any first impressions?
-Immediate gushing upon opening, this poured heavily unfiltered with a fluffy but fast receding foam.
-A bounteous perfume of minty herbs, conifer trees, and peach-like fruitiness titillates the nostrils with its bretty wilderness.
-Flavor is less engaging than the leaping and colorful aroma, offering a tame melange of sourness, dryness, wilderness, and citrusy fruitiness.
-An excited effervescence doesn’t nag due to its fragile and soothing breaking upon contact with the tongue.

What if you dig deeper?
-After a while, the yeast takes a little too much room in the flavor spectrum.
-A wacky tropical fruit salad, dominated by pineapple, sure spins the tastebuds around.
-Ends smoothly with showering carbonation, lingering bretty wilderness and hoppy leafiness.
-Another authentic Belgian ale by Arbor.

Bottled on March 2005.

Orange-golden beer. Fairly sour aroma with lots of lemon and a fairly solventy character. Slightly grassy and herbal. Seems to be quite rancid and it doesn’t go down very easily. Meh.

750ml bottle shared by Schroppfy. Hazy honey colored orange body with a small white head. Big and viscous in the glass. Has a strange melon and fruit cocktail smell, sweet smelling - candy, sugar, sugar, fruit, etc. Mild and faintly tart, undercarbonated and sugary, prickly, and similar in texture to some unblended lambic. Finishes with slightly sour pears. Very palatable but doesn’t offer a whole lot.

Draft at HopCat. Poured clear copper color with an average fizzy white head that mostly lasted with good lacing. Moderate orange citrus and coriander aroma. Medium body with a sticky texture. Medium spicy sweet flavor with a medium sweet finish of moderate duration. Complex drinkable brew.