Fantôme Strange Ghost

Brewed by Brasserie Fantôme
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Soy-Erezée, Belgium

Translucent, magnifying and auburn-orange in color with a thin, encompassing and bubbly tan ice sheaf for the head. Aroma elicits an audible "holy hell" from me. Clearly, this ghost is going to be an herbaceous onslaught. The spices and vegetable traits assault the nose so quickly that it’s hard to record everything that’s shooting up the nose. Here we go: ginger root, anise, limes, sour lemons, ginger snap cookies, coriander, nutmeg, cumin, orange flavored toffee, cattails and cottonwood. Caraway seeds register a little later, but provide the bridge from the nose to the mouth. Cumin flavor is dead on. Ragweed, dandelions, marigold and pollen as well. Jeez. Some chick peas and tahini. Good gracious - strange indeed. If this materialized into solid matter, there’d be an allergenic epidemic. Seemingly lighter fairing, save the garden shock overcome with weeds ganging up on the palate post sip. Fairly well balanced with effervescence vanishing a little too early. Finish is laden with dried out wood scraps in abandoned prairie fields, along with coriander, moderate limes and cumin to bring the pollinated performance to a close. Quite the thinker.

Very humorous label. Pours ruby red with a white head. Smelly spicey with some pine notes. Taste is of pine resin, maple, lots of spices. Very over the top as expected from these guys.

Hazy dark amber with a decent sized white head. Odd, medicinal nose, reminiscent of Vicks Vapo-Rub. The flavor bears out that mentho-lyptus goodness. It’s obviously well crafted beer, but the spicing is just too much for me.

Dark amber ale with a thick off-white head. Crazy looking. Rather tame thyme aroam, with good hop character and pepper notes. Herbal and malty in mouth, with italian spices and strong hops. Creamy and smooth with nice alcohol in finish. A spagetti sauce without tomatoes. Mondial 2005.

Dusty orange-brown. Weird nose, mint and fresh-cut grass. Spicy, some pepper and ginger. Flavor is very, very odd. Mouthwash? Toothpaste? Odd mintiness there, finishes with a whole bunch of sage. It tastes like I brushed my teeth after eating Thanksgiving dinner.

750 ml bottle thanks to afterexile. Murkybrown pour with little head. Immediate and strong aromas of ginger and other spices. Flavors were ginger all spice, black pepper. Strange indeed, but still good.

beer #6 of the night at hey_kevin’s Iowa City gathering. sorry I never heard who provided this bottle. strong aroma of mint & spice. poured a hazy orange with lots of orangey white head and lace. a very unusual strong flavor of sage with an extremely dry finish. nice to try but didn’t find anything here to bring me back again.

Poured a slight amber color with an off-white head. Intense and interesting picy, minty aroma. I’m kind of undecided on how I liked the taste of this one. It had a mouthwash, astringent type of flavor to it. This gets points for being interesting and different, but I dont think I need to have this one again.