Fantôme Hiver (Winter)

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

750ml Bottle: Very strange aroma. Smells like Armenian string cheese. Poured amber/orange/copper in color with a small tan head that diminished quickly. Opaque. Odd spiced flavor. Tastes like tomato sauce with lots of oregano and basil. Medium body. Average texture. Soft carbonation. Dry finish. WTF is this???

750mL Bottle (likely from 2005 or 2006). Noses in rubbery spiced aroma, but too medicinal. Plant-like and bit vegetal. Chewy. Pours a clouded amber with off-white rim. Salty caramel, spice, lots of good saison yeast, but oxidized. Malts are minimal. A little past it’s peak. Dusty and settled. Malts aren’t bad. No hops. But none of that effervescent exuberance. Hasn’t held up well, which is surprising for a malty, 8% Saison.

Pours a hazy orange-brown with small light-beige head and some lacing. Aroma is yeasty, cherry, noble hoppy and orange. Flavor is lightly sweet, some acidity, yeasty, orange, cherry) and spicy. Light to medium bodied, sticky orange texture. Short floral hoppy finish.

Quite a unique beer - my first Fantome. Dark amber red, opaque with nice white head. Yeast dregs on second pour made it even more beautiful, for whatever reason. Nose is much funkier, distinctive than the taste - with some barnyard esters and spices. Rasping, moderately bitter taste with substantial citrus hop flavor - pineapple and bitter orange predominant. Slight malt balance, mostly toffee and caramel.

Pours a medium dark brown color of dissolved bread with a tall-forming white head, leaving sticky and patchy cobwebs all over the glass. Perfect. Nose of mild pumpkin spice, a light note of syrupy candy sugar (sweetness), some randomly spiced bread, a few things that my nose is not smart enough to pick out, but it smells downright phenomenal, with that typical Fantome peat and earth smell that is unrivaled. Flavor: mildly sweet and prickly up front, more rounded in the middle, with a developing topsoil and mushroom and black peppery yeast flavor that is unimaginable delicious and full.

Ehhh...I can’t say I was digging this. Nice pour and aroma of mild funk. This thing had a really strong herbal spice flavor that really, really tasted like strong oregano. The beer reminded me of a tomato pie...and that wasn’t a great thing. Some fruitiness and mild funk underneath that seemed like it would have been good if someone didn’t come along while I wasn’t looking and put all this oregano in my beer.

Bottle. Pours hazy amber color with a frothy white head. Aroma is citrus, yeast, caramel, pineapple. Flavor is citrus, candi sugar, pineapple, floral. Palate is light to medium bodied, medium carbonation, finished on the acidic. Very nice. Not what I was expecting from a "winter" brew.

2006 bottle (I think) - Golden pour with a medium head. Aroma is thick, sour, sweet, and barnyardey - really intriguing. Flavor has some really nice fruit taste blending with a bretty sour/funkiness that really got me good. Yeast and malt flavors match up well here and finish nicely. The best Fantome I’ve had and a really nice surprise. I Need more of this fantastic brew!