Chapeau Faro

Brewed by Brouwerij De Troch
Style: Lambic - Faro
Ternat-Wambeek, Belgium

Bottle shared with biegaman, blankboy, tupalev & HogTownHarry - courtesy of HogTownHarry. Finally got all the Styles! Yeah! Pours a hazy deep amber with no head. Aroma is pretty damn nice - a good mixture of sweet and sour, with sweet sugary notes hovering over a tart, funky background. Flavour - eh, not digging this as much. The sweetness gets cloying quickly, and the funkiness is all but buried. Still - it’s the LAST STYLE! Thanks Harry!

Bottle (375ml). Shared with biegaman, blankboy, GregClow and tupalev, my bottle via trade with Saarlander. THE LAST STYLE!!! Well, it’s capped and corked, the cork was pretty wet, lot’s of pressure, but no gushing. Mostly clear amber with large dark chunkies, small head. Really nice sour aroma, sweet candy malt, funky yeast, rubbery - pretty nice! Taste is very sweet and fruity, yeast but not much funk. Thick, sweet, syrupy mouthfeel - ehh. Smells great.

Best by April 1997. Thanks Saarlander for picking this up and trading it to me! The aroma is woodsy rhubarb. The pour actually looks nice, but only on the first glasses taken from the bottle. It looks like sludgey poo later on. The flavor is really sugary. Sugary woodsy flavor and palate.

Best by April 1997. Last pour of the bottle. Dirty poo water with slight amber hints. Thin bubbly head. Woody/corky whiskey-like malted aroma. Sugary honeycomb hints. I actually moderately like the aroma. Its aged and woody. Taste is sweet and woody. Burnt caramel. Okay... perhaps a nice introduction to lambic beginners. It is overly sweet, but that does not take too much away from the lambic character.

Bottle shared by Blake. Hazy orange body, not much head. Cardboard, wet cork, dried banana, and lactic acid. Not really inviting but not terrible either. The flavor takes a downturn - stale, tart sugar water with a woody finish. Glad to have tried this stuff so I can appreciate unsweetened lambics more!

vintage april 1997 thanks Blake cork smells like honeycomb and shit. a copperish color w/ visable carbonation and a nicely full off white head w/ some good lacing (surprising on a beer this old) Odd aroma very sweet dark burnt sugars dominate w/ some hints of what I guess I would describe as wood or leather. Palate is oddly carbonated avg volume. Flavor is very sweet mostly just lightly carmeled over roasted brown sugars then some more sugar some carbonation then a bit more sugar... I’m not sure what a faro is or if this is it but this is blah.

21.05.06 Jimmack Invitational ’06 As usual, Joeec5 comes through with the highlight of the event, a beauty from Chapeau! Honestly, I don’t know why people are down on this brewery that consistently pumps out quality sweetened lambics...oh, right. At any rate, this beer, though thinner bodied, was fully coating and never overly sweet, though a bit so. Tart but drinkable stuff, I’d be willing to try it again. I’d never guess this was a lambic if I hadn’t seen the label.

375 ml bottle, via Styles. Ah, the elusive Faro rate. Who knows how this one will go. Pours a dark gold colored body with a slight yeast haze. Head was very small and faded to a thin film immediately. Aroma is musty and funky with a sugary sweetness and dry green apples. Slight vinegar notes as well. Flavor is rather odd, lots of green apple tartness but then a sickeningly sweet burst of sugar attacks the tongue. The mouthfeel is medium bodied with moderate fine bubbled carbonation. Only 1/3 of the bottle thru and it’s getting a little cloying. Overall, I don’t know what to think, so I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. I’d like to try some "real" Faro before I make a decision, but I think I’ll have my Lambic straight.