Best Before End of 2025 Lot 18 Nr 22

ABV is not noted on the bottle. BA has the 2019 bottles at 7.0%, Rate Beer has 8.0%.

Very pretty golden body. Head average, retention not incredible (some spotty lace and some spotty film on the surface of the beer. The second pour with the yeast sediment brings the murky orange body.

Nose is surprisingly fruity. I mean really fruity. Almost some estery-like pineapple. Wasn’t expecting that!

First tastes seem very bitter but with time and warmth that evens out a little bit – not much, but a little bit. The beer does leave some metal coinage on the back end, too.

There are plenty of bitter tannins here, and they build. The bitterness is really hard to avoid, and in time it starts to get a bit tiring. I get little else. No yeasty funk, no botanicals and no herbal elements that one might get from a more typical Fantôme, and the fruit that the nose promised either was an illusion or gets overwhelmed. There are some bitter fruit piths and skins in there too.

This is a little rough around the edges if I’m honest. I like bitter beer, but this is a bit grueling. Macaquincoing is a bitter beer too, but this feels more aggressive and lacks a subtle edge that beer has.

In the end this is bit of a miss for me. I don’t dislike it per se, but it’s hard work. A little too much work if I’m honest.