Arbor Brasserie Greff Brune

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

Bought in Ann Arbour, aged one year from bottling down the road. This is an unusual brown, yes sourness but not a sour beer overall. Good drinking. Soapy big head on opaque brown. Malt and yeasty enjoyable aroma. Moderate sourness, and medium mouthfeel, complex and good drinkability.

Brown-redish body with a small beige head. Overall appreciation of this beer is as followed: While many Flemish Sour have oaky flavours producing a cherry tasting this one is clearly on the pure cherry side of things. No real wood/oak/barrel character, just cherries with its accompanied sourness and tartness. Well put together, appropriate for a tasting session. Kind of fun in small doses but in large quantities can be as tiresome as a Kung Fu movie marathon.

Bottle shared by StewardofGondor. I see Tom and I are slowly catching up on our ratings from March. To echo, this one still created bubbles above the cap until it was below half empty. Hazy old copper color with a billowing, fluffy beige head. Tart and un-tame aromas. Some hopsack, some horseblanket, touch of cherries and other more biting fruits. A light pale malt start is quickly taken in my a mild hops bitterness and just a hint of sour fruit. Quite tame for a sour, but still and interesting brew.

Bottle shared by StewardofGondor on 3/25/06: Pours a transparent dark copper mahogany with a large airy pillowy light tan head after lots of gushing. Sweet earthy mild barnyard and toasty Belgian malty aroma has some bread and mildly tart cherries. Starts with a lightly malty sweet, dry earthy, grassy bitterness well-balanced with a sweet authentic Belgian lingering bitter finish. An enjoyable Flemish sour, but seems more like a saison because it isn’t very tart.

Bottled, many thanks to StewardofGondor. This was an extreme gusher!... really didn’t settle down until it was almost gone. Hazy, medium caramel pour with a huge, loose-bubbled head... some lacing ensued. Cherry, apricot, and raspberry tartness provide a quite potent and intriguing nose... oak and mild funkiness emerge upon further investigation. Flavor was of sour fruits and basement, a little caramel, oak, and sparkly alcohol... maybe a hint of oxidization, too. Sour as expected on the palate.. over-carbonated... dry and pleasant finish. Sourness increases with the temperature. Interesting and overall-enjoyable brew.

Bottle purchased from the brewery in December 2005 and shared with the local Milwaukee crew. Explosive, booming, sudsy, bubbly, mocha fluff head rides a murky, muddy, middle-to-darkening brown color. Dynamic aroma ensnares some applewood, cranberries, rhubarb, pepper and raspberry vinaigrette. Crazy stuff. Raspberry kernels and mildew seem to sneak in on wafts on the backend. Strangely beautiful flavor. Mildew on rain-sodden barnyard planks, never undergoing renovations since erection at the turn of the century. Peppery apple butter meets maple tree bark. Definitive barnyard composure. Sandals and saddles. Mildew and mulch. Slightly sweet and sour surges, but very tolerable and ever inductive. Perhaps not a style champion, but I’m liking it over others in the genre. Rhubarb repeats in the finish, mired by pepper, apple cider and musky light-blend molasses. Very enjoyable.

Pours to a murky brown body with a creamy off-white head. The aroma is sour oaken cherries and bananas. Very good. The flavor is a lightly nutty sour light peat. The palate is dry and lightly chalky.

HUGE FIZZER just kept gushing deep brown hugh w/ a gigantic tan sticky head everywhere. Sour cherries aroma nicely tart hints of a light wood and some dark fruits, maybe a bit of vinager. Pal is well coated and carbonated. Flavor is oddly sour a very dry sour hints of wood. Wierd...