Fantôme Strange Ghost

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

Well, what surprises do we have here? Pours a luminescent but foggy copper with an ample egg-shell head. Nose is full of earthy, bready, funky, and spicy notes. Great earthy/yeasty flavor that is quickly complimented by ’strange’ herbal qualities. I’m picking up hints of chevril, mint, celery-seed, and who knows what else. Also has a nice cool cucumber aspect that helps clean out and unify all the ingredients. There is a ghost in this bottle, and its name is Innovation. I love Fantome for their eccentricity. I just wish that more than his ’core’ brews were readily available. I think this style (experimental/spice/herb/vegetable) is sorely underrated. A great offering from one of my absolute favorite brewers.

I can’t thank SoLan enough for sharing this beer with me. Pours dark brown with a surprisingly small white head and tan edging. The aroma is quite intriguing: lemon, herbs, funky yeast. For a while, there was one taste and smell I couldn’t place until it hit me: SASSAFRASS ROOT. Tastes include sassafrass, more lemon, mint, parsley, musty earth, orange zest, slight hand soap, and the whole kitchen spice rack. Medium carbonation and full-bodied. Incredibly complex and different from other Fantome brews. I enjoyed this immensely. Make more, Dany!!!

Cedar, leaves, lavender, sage, white pepper and celery in the spicy aroma. Clear caramel-copper coloured body with a decent and lasting fine-bubbled off-white head that leaves some fair lacing. Cedar, peppery spiciness and yeasty flavours mingle nicely. Smooth and creamy texture with a gentle effervesence that caresses the tongue and cheeks. Truly a unique artisanal beer from a master craftsman. Sampled at Mondial de la Bière 2005.

Ruddy translucent copper with a splotchy head. Nose is an unbelievable combo of cloves, brown sugar, pepper, and....go ask JorisPPattyn. The mouth takes all of wich and adds licorish root, anis, sasparilla, soap and a touch of malt. Finishes with aquavite.

Dull amber (yeast in suspension, despite careful pouring), with orange-red shine. Nose is - GOD WHAT? - cypress? myrrh? incense? - no - it's the smell of bog myrtle in an Irish moor. Taste: WOOW! This is the taste of kaffir-limes ("wild limes"), if you've ever had the opportunity to taste those, together with bog myrtle, cypress. Yet there is a subterranean sweetness. It's like being in a late autumn garden, next to the cypress plant, wild mushrooms coming up, and in the field next, the winter leeks are being covered, marvellous! Mouthfeel: oily, slick, but in NO way repulsive. Aftertaste: what I described as myrrh or cypress, now turns to a resiny flavour: cedar, copalite, Retsina. THAT'S it: this is the Retsina under the beers. Strange (ghost) indeed. I LOVE it. I don't like Retsina. Go figure.

Hazy deep darkish honeyed orange hue. Small unlasting capping of dullish white foam grows up quickly from the pour then fades to a bubbly skim and collar. Drippy and non sticky lace with only a few spots staying. Herbal crazy nose of super high pitched bittersweet floralness and raw lemon. Dandylions, wheat grass, white grape, corriander, and other uniquely herbal aromas bring a brigade of dizzying sniffing enjoyment each time its taken in. Has just a touch of barnyard stuff buzzing about, but the spicey herbal character remains quite true, strong, and beautiful. Awesome nose! Taste is nearly as dizzying but somehow comes across nice and mellowing with a solid herbal tone over a smallish toasted pale malt and bready doughy sweetness. Kinda honeyish really, especially as it goes, with a solid mix of raw orange and lemon ascents, all the while keeping a firm little creamy sense and a wonderfully natural spicey kick that delivers a uniquely floral, fauna, earthy, grassy effect. A surprise awaits nearly every sip that wraps up all sorts of herbs and spices that’ll keep ya guessing. Feel is about medium, actually kinda dulled in comparison to the overall spicyness it carries. Which is, again, a unique complexity to the overall, taken in conception of how the beer is moving. It has a certain yeasty grab and underscored malty tang, but the complex spices and herbs really turn it into a whole nother complexion of texture and tone. Wow, this has an immense complexity about it that fits the Fantome family very well. I really liked how it wasn’t over the top all that much as its funkyness is quite tame. The sourness well controlled and the bitterness well-rounded in earthyness of herbs and grasses. There’s nothing strange about a beer this good other than trying to figure out what exactly those spices and herbs are.

Rusty orange. Extremely foamy head, sticking on the glass like there’s no end, beautiful lacing capacity. Awesome core pencil shavings yeasty nose. Granite rockiness, overwhelming wood notes. Incredibly complex and jumping at you. Lime and pepper yeasty interplays. It smells like chips, it smells like cedar resin and spruce. Very green aroma, tea like chamomile notes with more spice depth reminiscent of sage and thyme. Very fun to sniff and decorticate, but there’s no way you can figure what’s in there. Rooty greenish flavours. Mellow chillies, spice blend, cumin and maybe even salt. It is very dry in mouth, campfire like or moreso sawdust like dryness, earthy and highly pleasant, just not as enticing as the fiery aroma. Creamy palate, light carbonation, perhaps not as lively as most Fantôme, but even more original and unique.

2005 RBSG Montreal Friday Night Tasting. Golden amber colour with a frothy off-white head. Spruce, juniper, caramel, rosemary, and herbal aroma. Eucalyptus, juniper, rosemary, light caramel, and light citrus flavours. Light, dry, but very refreshing. Yummy.