Hi all, I am going to be spending a week in Belgium at the beginning of November. I'm already planning on visiting Cantillon, De Grote Dorst, Moeder Lambic and some other places. I was thinking about attempting to make the journey to Fantome but finding out when/if they are open for a visit has been difficult. Can anyone who has made the trip offer me some guidance here? Thank you!
Have you tried sending them an email? I did this when I was passing through a few years ago. They gave me a time to drop in. I turned up a few days later at the agreed time and they had no idea I was coming! Still, I got a short tour and bought a box of saison. The saison, however, I think was quite fresh and hadn't finished carbonating. It was a bit flat and gave me a headache at first. After 3 or 4 months it got better. There were loading up a pallet for the US at the time so I think they must let their bottles carbonate on the boat on the way over!
Seems like I tried to visit Fantome a couple years ago as well. A lot of these smaller Belgian places don't have what we in the US would consider tap rooms or conform to stated hours even if they do. It's just a more casual approach. Emails can also be somewhat hit or miss, so after a few tries to schedule something with a couple different places, I gave up.
