Fantôme Hiver (Winter)

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

Slightly hazy amber with a thick diminishing rocky white head. Somewhat musty aroma with horseblanket, caramel, fruit, clove and other spices. Medium light watery body with lively carbonation. Flavor starts tangy with pepper, citrus, wood, banana, honey, pear, clove and other spices. It finishes with spice, wood and a nice alcohol warmth. Very good.

The fizz heard and the yeast herds announce another blizzard from the spice wizard...A sweet earth settlement implements a cocoa powder element, as mystical citric yeast dandifies the systematical chocolate bread...Curacao peel consciousness around carbonated viciousness emboldens a red pepper-bearing lusciousness...Under this, the apotheosis of fluffiness, resides one of Prignon’s best works of art...

1998 vintage sampled Dec ’04: Wonderful hazy gold orange. Big nose--sour apples, spice, dried fruit. firm carbonation but light bodied. My friends I split this with all agreed it’s a beer that "encapsulates the season spirit." This is just a wonderful funky sour ale. One so good, I think I’m just gonna relax and drink it and let you find out for yourself how good it is.

2000 vintage sampled Feb ’04: Very cloudy golden brown. No head. No lace. Fruity tart nose. Medium bodied with very low carbonation. Tart and very refreshing with notes of cherry, pear, raisin, and apple. Slightly astringent. Excellent.

What an appearance! Dany surpasses himself again here with a beautiful looking beer. In a Chimay chalice, it pours a bottle-conditionned cloudy deep amber with a huge mountainous extremely sticky off-white head that doesn't seem to have gone down after half an hour. Decadent looking. Aroma is very unique and complex. A spring harvest, Was I in florida having gathered fruits the whole day with a strong desire to just relax and have a fitting beer, that's what I'd shoot for. Immensely complex fruits layers: Lemon, grapefruit, apple, pomegranate, juniper. It remains very sweet altogether with an invitation closing to powder baking sugar and vanilla, but balanced by the Fantôme funk(yeasty cobwebs). The taste is also on the sweet side with a refreshing acidity reminiscent of apples and oranges baskets. Lots of funk, lots of spices (coriander, curacao, sage), you could almost think it's partly made with touches of wheat. The baking sugar from the aroma here is more apparenting to cocoa and sweet chocolate dancing with the fruits like a good chocolate syrup over fruit ice cream. Very effervescent (almost overly so) powdery medium body with a long pastey (mint toothpaste?) aftertaste. Did I say this was complex? and it's desperately good too!

Clear sparkling amber with acreamy fine particled white head. Glass lacing is outstanding. The aroma is quite yeasty with apples and oranges dominating the fruity aroma. The flavor is fruity with more of a pear flavor along with a good bit of sweet malt the mouth-feel is very soft and creamy. With a caramel finish. An outstanding beer in every way.

whispy yet strong yeasty nips with loads of fruit and a little bit of alc. Spicey aroma. Gorgeous colored with a moderate head completely lacing the glass. Coating and soft in the mouth. Loads of fruit, dry, astringency. spice is mellow, moderately dry, way funky.

spicy yeast aroma, cloudy orange with a tight frothy head, orangey flavor then kinda watery, sweet grasslike finish with a good yeast profile but lacks the bite I look for in a saison

Orange/brown in colour with a big white head. Aromas are honey, spices and rusky yeast. Flavours are yeasty and sweet with some wheat. Quite a mild taste and somewhat sweet and sour. Great label!