Fantome last year new styles ...

Dany Prignon (Fantôme's brewer) is enquiring about how his new beers of the last year or so have been received and whether he has to continue to focus on his "standard" saison and other older beers or can move on. As ever, there is a question about performative enigmatigness (if that's the right spelling or word or if the beer really should be so green... etc.)

 

Dany,
I very much enjoy your core beers, that said the Fantome in Flowers was a very good
offering that sold quickly here.
Cheers to you and your family

 

The only new to me brew that I saw in the last year or so from fantome was the saison de Sergio. I thought it was excellent and agree.that the base saison is a wonderful beer. Unfortunately we don't see a ton of fantome stuff around here. I think it might make better inroads on tap than in bottles.
I'm also curious to hear how @danybrew views his beers shelf life

 

I'd love to comment on this, but sadly Shelton Brothers does not deem Washington state very worthy of getting your beers, and the ones we do get are stuck at The Masonry for on-site consumption with an extra markup, or at Garden Path Fermentation up North in Skagit County. I would be buying your stuff if we actually got more of it and if it weren't such a pain in the ass to obtain.

 

Now that you mention it, I’ve never seen any Fantome on tap out here (SFBayArea). That would be pretty cool to find.

 

I know what he is saying. Will there be a Dartmouth Turbid Tonic I sold Fantome years ago and always wondered what was the next brew to be like, even from the same batch. But i still love them.

 

Same in Minnesota been 5 or 6 years sine we have been able yo buy a bottle from the shelf and that was still scarce.

 

I've only given 3 saisons a perfect score on Beer Advocate: Fantome, HF, and Side Project....I'd have no trouble if you focus on the original saison and work on increasing production slightly and getting it into more US markets. Would rather see this than offering lots of other beer portfolio options at risk of not being at as high as standard as your original saison. I'll find it on store shelves occassionally when traveling in other US states, but don't know if I recall seeing it in Maryland area.

 

First things first they need to stop using green bottles for their beer.

 

I did not know why, but I could not find any Fantome Noel this past holiday season. That has been a favorite of mine for flavor and for gifts. Perhaps it was not produced.
I’ll check into it and try to find a new favorite if Noel is no longer brewed. Large format bottles are nearby in a couple of shops.

 

This year's Santé,and last year's In Flowers were both *amazing*. I think a balance of new and classic saisons is what I would like best

 

That's not happening. They use green glass exactly for the reason you think they shouldn't.

 

Is that so their product has the appearance of a "premium" beer?

 

Probably because he wants to introduce a light sulfury note into the beers, here's some well respected american brewers talking about their reasons

 

@unlikelyspiderperson nailed it. The bit of UV ray "skunk" flavor presumably adds to the funky notes, or at least that's the theory.

Thanks for posting the link to the green bottle piece. Very interesting stuff. The writer points how how Jester King is using green bottles for some beers and even green *and* brown bottles for a couple beers. I'm not sure if I've tried one of their beers in both formats, but I have tried a collaboration between JK and Fantome that's one of the best beers I've ever had.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/24018/228467/?ba=Premo88#review

 

That was what I keyed on as well. I would love to get to try some side by sides of the same batch of beer packaged in both formats

 

I do tend to buy the "skunking isn't bad, maybe even good" argument for certain wild and sour beers. There are so many weird aroma and flavor compounds already present in many cases that I don't think the skunkiness is particularly likely to detract, and I do think it can add another layer of complexity or at least slide in harmlessly and largely unnoticed among all of the other crazy things already going on.

That said, for my tastes, keep the skunkiness away from all "cleanly" fermented beers (but I know many Heineken and Corona fans disagree, to the small extent that they actually understand what appeals to them about those beers beyond marketing). Also, it does come across a little gimmicky when young American craft breweries go out of their way to adopt the green bottles. And why not go all in with clear bottles? I do think marketing, not just what's best for the beer itself, is part of the calculation.

But I'm on the record as endorsing the presence of perceptible diacetyl in certain styles (especially Bohemian pilsners, but I think it can be a delicious complementary flavor in many pale-shaded styles), and there's a whole generation of craft beer drinkers who appear to find what historically would've been considered under-attenuation (mainly in many NEIPAs and pastry stouts) to be almost essential to their ability to enjoy beer. Sometimes a fault is a feature.