Creamy off-white good mostly lasting head. Dark red amber colour. Moderate malty and light hoppy aroma. Moderate bitter flavor. Average moderate bitter finish. Creamy palate.

Bottle, thanks to Danny, split at the Grand Reunion Tasting, Watford 02/10/20. Raspberry jam brown with a decent dark crimson to light beige cap. Nose is cherry skins, straw, earthy, dried fruit esters. Taste comprises earthy cherries, wood must, damp hay, vinous trace. Medium bodied, fine carbonation, semi drying close. Not bad.

Bottle shared in London - picked up online. Pours deep reddish brown with a creamy khaki head. Light to medium sweet with mellow Belgian yeast, soft cherry notes, toasted brown bread. Medium bodied with fine, massaging carbonation. Decent balance in the finish. Not bad.

Bottle shared at the 2nd Watford tasting. Thanks to Leighton for this one. A cola brown coloured pour with a a frorhy beige head. Aroma is woody, earthy cherry, mushroom, earthy, pinch of salt. Flavour is composed of semi sweet, earthy, some jammy fruits, earthy, strawberry, midget gems,. Palate is semi sweet, rounded, frothy earthy, little bitter.

Bottle from Etre Dark brown in color with a hint of ruby on the edges and some clarity with a huge bubbly off white head. Dark malts light roast faint cherry and earthy spice. Almost no balance in flavors, it tries to be too many things and fails. Decent at best.

'Dark' saison - this has been a thing for years, but never quite caught on in the craft beer world - fruited with morellos, a main type of sour cherries. Thanks tderoeck for sharing. Slow gusher, but manageable; still resulting in a towering head, yellowish pale beige and slowly collapsing, leaving lots of lacing above a very dark chestnut brown robe, almost blackish but with mahogany-reddish hue. Aroma of old brown bread, very strong iron shavings (proven by the hand test - clearly head stabilizers were added here), black cherries rather than actual sour cherries, old dusty chocolate bars, wet nutmeg powder, blackberries, old mouldy walnut shells, dead tree leaves. Sweetish onset, fruity but again more reminiscent of ripe, sweet, black cherries than sour cherries, yet still with that fleshy morello character, paired with hints of candied fig and red apple; sour undercurrent from the fruit accentuated by a lively carbonation effect. Old-chocolatey, walnutty and brown-bready middle, still clearly fruited but more sweet than tart, ending a bit 'dirty' and earthy with that iron effect strongly sitting on the edges (and making it all but undrinkable to some of the other tasters that evening that were apparently more sensitive to this than me); cherry juiciness in the end for sure, but muffled a bit by the iron as well as the strong breadiness and 'dirtiness' of the yeast, which also adds thyme- and nutmeg-like phenolic effects. Herbal hop bitter touch as well. Bizarre as usual for Fantôme and we can perfectly handle that, but why add iron to create a head? Even without head retention, this would have been better off without that iron, as it is quite dominant and distracts from what one should actually be tasting. One that will sharply divide opinions, I think - it's been a while since we had a good old Fantôme experiment as divisive as this one...

19/VII/20 - 75cl bottle from Bierhalle Deconinck (Vichte), shared @ home, BB: n/a (2020-658)

Clear dark brown beer, big fizzy irregular beige head, unstable, non adhesive. Aroma: bit fruity, cherry flavoured jam, oxidized, juicy, weird, smells very aged. MF: lively carbon, medium body. Taste: pretty bitter, dry, oxidized, metallic, spicy, quite some oregano, very spicy, soft roast. Aftertaste: some liquorice, caramel, pretty bitter, spicy, oregano, oxidized, cherry jam, not very great.

Poured from a 750 ml bottle. Aroma is fairly typical dark Fantome. Malt character of dark caramel, toffee and burnt sugar with hints of roast, toast and nuts. Light floral esters with moderate peppery, herbal phenolic notes. Medium light cherry notes with hints of tannins. Pours dark brown to black with a large, medium thick, frothy, cola colored head that recedes slowly to a small, thick, film that lingers. Not an explosive gusher, but one that steadily and continually creeps out of the bottle, even after pouring a glass or two. Flavor is slightly sweet with faint acidity and moderately strong malt notes. Moderately strong notes of dark caramel, toffee, burnt sugar, toast and lighter notes of nuts and faint roast. Fairly strong bitterness that lingers in the finish and light alcohol notes. Some light floral esters with moderate herbal, spicy, peppery phenolic notes. Light cherry notes and tannins that remind me of a cross between a dried cherry and a maraschino cherry. Lingering phenolics and malt notes. Mouthfeel is medium bodied with medium high carbonation. Medium low astringency and low alcohol warmth. Overall, an alright beer but an odd one. The cherry notes are muted and not bright and the malt profile is dark and dry. Lots of herbal and peppery phenolic notes.