This is one of those classic Fantôme beers that out of the gate, both in terms of the nose and the initial tastes, almost knock you off your feet with phenols, band-aids and other medicinal notes. However, also in a classic manner, it backs down quite quickly to keep those elements but bring them all back into line. Like a sheepdog herding the sheep to order. There’s still crazy sheep, but somehow Dany has corralled them.

Mid-orange pour with some good, lively head to kick things off, but with a level of retention and lace which is only average for Fantôme – still good, but not a lively as many.

Plenty of classic bitterness, herbal notes, medicinal phenols and antiseptic edges, the beer drinks surprisingly easily with a much greater level of sweetness in the mid and back-end than I was expecting. It’s smooth and easy drinking which is helped by a smaller ABV than usual. Peppery spice as expected – typically Fantôme.

The beer finishes gently with a little fruit and some more pronounced bitterness in the aftertaste. This in stark contrast to some earlier sweetness.

An extremely typical Fantôme beer in every except the ABV.