Fantôme Chocolat

Brewed by Brasserie Fantôme
Style: Saison
Soy-Erezée, Belgium

Bottle 750 ml
Appearance: Light amber like bright copper , cloudy amber with medium creamy fizz
Nose :farm citrus , grassy hay front , slightly sour. Very light hints of creamy chocolate blended with grape and red apple.7+
Flavor/Palate : Medium bodied , strong frontal sourness. Creamy chocolate follows , milky- corn like with sour apple spread. Unusual with moderate success.

Densely clouded pale amber appeaarmce. Funky, musk, yeasty nose, mild sweet fruitiness. Subtle dry cocoa intro and undertones, moderately sweet and smooth at first, followed by a fairly acidic sour second half. Fairly bitter in the finish. Pleasantly surprised after thinking this was going to be a real novel loser. The cocoa notes are subtle but not hard to spot as some have noted. Still, a stronger chocolate emphasis would have been nicer since there should have been a little more here.

2005 RBSG Montreal Friday Night Tasting. Cloudy muddy brown colour with a very thin layer of off-white head. Yeasty, tart, light caramel, and light very sweet chocolate aroma. Dry yeasty bitter flavour with an acidic finish plus a faint background chocolate touch. Light bodied, dry, fizzy mouthfeel.

Aroma of sweet malt, pit fruit, orange, almost no head. Taste is fruity, tangy, barnyard, tart, dry. Very nice. Thanks mds.

Classic Fantome aroma--it gives up no sense of its ingredients! It’s like they’re all the same at the aroma level. Drinking it...well...it’s actually the same thing. A bit of chocolate/lactic astringency can be found there, but the spice isn’t there. Cocoa and chili? It’s all a wash in the sea of Fantome-ness.

Bottle... Murky amber ale with a small, fizzy, off-white head. Musty, subtle cocoa and cayenne nose. Lightly sweet chocolate flavor with moderate bitterness outshone by medium tartness. Surprisingly, light to medium-bodied and watery with gentle carbonation. Tart, subtle chocolate finish.

The Lure:
Citrusy, melony hay and minty bread emanate from the hazy blond veil. Red pepper is a neighbor. Yep, believe it or not, this is the Chocolat.

The Festivities:
A quite creamy mouthfeel for a Fantôme, carbonation is nowhere near out of bounds. Sweetness (from the cocoa?) is well-balanced with the dry, bitter ending of the red pepper, and the roaming fruitiness. Yeastiness is light, again not standard for the Fantômes I’ve had. No one else could brew a Chocolat which barely tastes of chocolate, doesn’t look anywhere near chocolate coloured, and still get away with making a good beer. This one falls short of "very good" though, in my book.

Transcendence:
Remember that little kid in your class who was color-blind and kept running around with big round eyes, touching everything?

Light hazy amber golden color. Floaties (that can’t be good), really random carbonation. Sour lemon zesty, oranges, barnyard and a very very faint whiff of smoke. Slightly tart wet leather, oranges, yeasty, cardamon mouth. Dry bitter, mildly tart finish. Interesting stuff.