Chapeau Faro

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

A Mes rate. Draught at ZBF.
My GOD this is bad. Ugly dirty brown colour is the best thing about it. It’s like drinking sweet dishwater and it’s pretty horrific. Avoid at all costs...

Well, I’ve delayed this for a long time, but I’m finally braving the dreaded Chapeau to get my faro lambic tic. The pour is a dark and lightly hazy garnet color with a minimal, khaki colored film at the head. Not a spot of lacing marks the glass. The nose is downright nasty, notes of moldy wood, foul cheese, an dirty feet funking up an underlying layer of malty sweet raisin and soured fig. Woof! The flavor is sweet and funky, probably more heavily sugared than any lambic on planet Earth, with notes of caramel-fig and spoiled dark fruit lending a very saccharine overtone. Funky, cheesy lactose sourness seems to be more oude bruin/Flemish sour than lambic. The wood flavor is again moldy and musty, and not "good" lambic musty. Sugary sweet and soda-like on the palate, this just doesn’t sit well at all. It’s not as horrible as the wretched Chapeau X-mas Geueze, but it’s not too much better either. Somebody get me a respectable faro to try, stat!

Brown with a lasting off-white head. Aroma of citrus and sugar, with a hint of cardboard. Sweet caramel and wort flavour, slightly tart with a touch of applejuice

Bottled(250ml). -Dark amber coloured, small white head that went away fast, sugary white wine nose with touch of butter. Bitter-sweet sticky fruity caramel taste with quite tart finish. Not so pleasant beer.

Bottle at the Belgian Brasserie Henry, shared with ogivlado.
Poured a hazy very dark red body with almost no head. Buttery nose, sticky sweet fruity taste, caramel, figs= Dry near the end. Ok in a way but ho-hum really.

Bottle, from Charleston Beer Exchange. Pours transparent brownish orange, with a medium sized tan head. Mild sweet tart aroma, with mild fruit and floral notes. Flavor begins with wood and a little tartness, but is then overcome by sugar water. This basically tastes like a saturated sugar solution. Syrupy mouthfeel. Finishes with a lot of sugar, a little woodiness, and mild spice. This was the first faro I’ve seen for sale on US soil, so I had to pick it up.

Bottle. An odd dark amber/brownish color with a fairly good sized tan head and rather good lacing, actually. Aroma dominated by funk, along with bread, sour cherries, and a hint of sugar. Flavor - damn, is this a ridiuculously sweetened lambic. Starts with sugar, leads into a little cherry- or apple-like fruitiness, and finishes with sugar. I swear I’m nearly able to feel the sugar granules go down at the end. It’s... not awful. It’s no lambic, either. I can see what they were going for in this - an easily drinkable "beer." It’s just that it doesn’t have enough beeriness, enough sourness, enough funk, or enough of anything else to match the near-cloying sweetness of the sugar. Still, though, I know some friends who would love this one - non-beer drinkers, all of them.

25cl bottle @ Biertempel, Brussels. Pours dark brown with a off white bubbly head. Sweet caramel, earth, citrus, sugar and dust. Medium to thin palate. Ok.