Fantôme Nuit Noire (De Garde Tank)
Brasserie Fantôme

Best before end 2028 ("or many more"). Poured from a 250mL capped bottle into a small Duralex tumbler. Served a bit under 55F.

Opaque bistre body with copper highlights, no head, nearly still. No lacing.

Rich, dark malt aroma with hints of cocoa, tobacco, and maybe oak.

Brutal, intensely concentrated waves of malt unfurl on the palate, lashing your taste buds with char, demi-glace, Russian caravan black tea (prior to adding water from a samovar), baker's chocolate, and tobacco leaves. Moderate bitterness from astringency more than hops. Perhaps some peppercorn/caraway? Powerful, withering, fairly dry, dusty finish dies away like a repressed nightmare. Whispers of barrel/funk/phenolics are quickly subsumed by the malt.

Hot, spirited, oily, medium-heavy, nearly still body.

The most befuddling ale style-wise - closer to adambier, eisbock, or strong ale than saison. Rated more for enjoy-ability.

Poured into a Fremont small snifter. Pours a near black dark mahogany brown, appearing opaque black in the glass with no noticeable carbonation; very viscous pour. Aroma of dark toasted malt, bakers chocolate, smoke, tobacco and vague dark dried fruit. Flavor follows, with deep, dark lightly toasted malt, tobacco, bakers chocolate, dark molasses, condensed coffee. Faint hint of medicinal spices in the finish. Heavy bodied with heavy creaminess; fortunately light to moderate carbonation despite the still pour. I expect something unusual with each Fantôme, but this one is in even a new league. With the dense, molasses-like pour and thick, thick body, leaving sludge in the bottom of the bottle, I actually took my first sip with trepidation. That was quickly followed by satisfaction and relief; the flavor is quite nice, although as dense as the body. This is about as far away from a saison as anything ever brewed, much closer to a heavy stout or American strong ale, although not resembling either one of those in flavor. This needs its own category of Euro strong ale. The flavor is very rich, full of umami character mixed with unsweetened chocolate and a little oxidation. I don't use tobacco in reviews very often, but there is an uncanny quality cigar wrapper element to the flavor along with its light astringency. The body is the thickest I've tasted, although I'm a fan of barleywines and stouts and it fits perfectly with the density of the flavors. Strange, but both quite drinkable (but not sessionable) and compelling. I got the Calvados version of this a few weeks ago and was wondering how I would face it if this was too weird, but I'm looking forward to it now. This guy is a genius, this should not have worked out. If the price point of this wasn't so scary, I'd happily get more of this for later.