Fantôme Boo!
Brasserie Fantôme

2012 vintage. Orange amber appearance with a foamy white lasting head. Orange, pepper, mixed spice, biscuit, malt. Moderate to thick mouthfeel, high carbonation.

 

 

lot 4 S7 17 - best before end 2019 (hmm...) Capped-and-corked 750mL bottle was a gusher, soaking half of my living room with ale! Poured what remained into my Troubadour tulip:

Safety orange/tangerine liquid, quite cloudy, with a finger of papaya whip foam. Superior retention, ropy lacing.

Rum-raisin, vintage suitcase, honey, a bit of citrus, peppery/spicy yeast notes in the nose (literally in my nose since the bottle opened so violently).

Complex, rich (though never husky) malt profile; phenol-forward yeast, and a touch of coriander/white pepper. Pumpkin/squash is present throughout, though restrained and never vegetal. Rustic, mature flavor, assertive but not as funky as you might expect. Dry, woody, not-quite-sharp elements compete with some residual sugars in the finish.

Soft, medium mouthfeel, gently warming.

Had opening it not turned into such an ordeal/event, I would possibly have ranked this higher, what I was able to salvage was an excellent and unique saison.

 

 

 

 

Pours a hazy orangish copper with a big head that stays for a while and leaves nice lace. Nose has a lot of classic saison qualities, but I also get Haribo peach gummies, jasmine, and allspice. The taste is very earthy, with more bitterness than expected. The earthiness combines with cloves and pepper as well. I don't really get pumpkin as a flavor here aside from what it adds to the earthy character. Champagne like mouthfeel.
So...the earthiness was a bit off putting with the first glass. Fortunately, the bottle is 750 ml and I was able to have 4 small glasses as it warmed. I enjoyed each subsequent glass more than the previous one. By the end, I wanted yet another glass, which means more to me than individual scores here.
My guess is that some of the low scores here came from bottle shares where the person only had a small sample and didn't have the chance to really experience this beer.

 

 

Undated bottle at 45 degrees into snifter
Aroma light with some fruity esters, ephemeral
Head small (< 2 cm, aggressive pour), off white, fizzy, diminishing to irregular ring and partial layer
Lacing none
Body light orange, clear
Flavor slightly musty, traces of fruits, ends slightly sticky; no hops noticeable, no alcohol, no diacetyl
Palate medium, creamy, soft carbonation

Appearance 3.5, Aroma 3.5, Flavor 3, Palate 4, Overall 3.5

750ml bottle into tulip.

A: Pours a semi-clear dark golden/light amber with a fluffy and extremely dense and thick off-whitehead that took forever and a day to slowly collapse into thick film.
S: I get funky notes of apple cider vinegar and tons of cooked squash. Smells like old vegetables with some mild spice and a touch of earth. Slightly medicinal.
T: Follows the nose but thankfully not as much cooked vegetable. Hints of lemon and earth in the finish. Mild tartness, earthy and mild spice, with light tartness and light funk. Squash is still noticeable but I wouldn't call it pumpkin. Slight medicinal quality in the finish next to some peppery spices. Candy like sweetness, iced tea, and anise flavors as well.
M: Medium full body, slick mouthfeel, low and fuzzy carbonation made of tight, tiny bubbles. Not super dry, slight greasy.
O: I didn't like it. Definitely tastes like squash but the nose is off putting and the tastes leaves something to be desired.

 

Poured into a Gavroche tulip. Gusher! I prepared by getting a glass ready and opening in the sink, but this one geysered out and I lost half the bottle before getting the glass in place. Once things calmed down, this poured a quite cloudy brownish orange, appropriate for pumpkin with a huge light tan head that dissipated to a thin film with light lacing. Aroma spicy, dominated by sweet potato and winter squash, lightly earthy and very autumnal. Flavor starts with light squash, saison yeast, light stone fruit, brett, mildly earthy but slightly sweet, then gets incredibly astringent, finishing with pure bitterness with little flavor. Medium bodied with active carbonation. I looked forward to what Fantome could do with a pumpkin ale and the first part of the taste was mild, but interesting in a earthy farmhouse way. The finish was too astringent, like an aspirin, overwhelming the interesting vegetable flavors. Not a fresh bottle, but stored in a cooler and labeled as good through 2015. This was a miss for me from an interesting brewery that usually pleases.