Ghostly good

Sunday night was an evening of high expectations. The series finale of "Lost" aired. To commemorate the death of my favorite show, I picked a beer I'd been highly anticipating drinking -- Fantome Saison. (Plus it seemed like a good fit with "Lost," a show that features a phantom-like smoke monster.)

Fantome Saison is the highest rated saison, according to Beer Advocate. Rate Beer also gives it a 99 out of 100. Since I love saisons, I really, really wanted to try this beer, which is brewed in Belgium and is hard to find in the US. I got lucky and snagged a bottle at New Beer Distributors in New York.

As I watched the two-hour recap that preceded the "Lost" finale, I cracked open the Fantome.

It had a slight sour and musty smell, but it's faint. It poured a cloudy gold that gets milkier further down the bottle from the unfiltered yeast sediment.

The taste was surprisingly delicate -- slightly sour with some barnyard funk. The sour hits the back of the mouth, causing a slight pucker and the roof of the mouth to salivate. The funk -- a light horse-blanket taste -- intensifies on the backend. The beer has a flat carbonation, which makes drinking it sort of a wine-like experience.

What the beer lacks in taste intensity, it makes up for in authenticity. This is a classic farmhouse ale -- raw, simple, natural, organic. It's an artful Belgian gold ale that is worth seeking out.

That said -- like the "Lost" finale itself -- the Fantome didn't quite meet my lofty expectations. It's a good beer for sure. But I don't think it's great.


The details:
Name: Fantome Saison
Brewer: Brasserie Fantome
Beer Advocate rank: 68
Style: Belgian Saison
Alcohol: 8 percent
Cost: $12 for a 750-ml bottle
My Grade: A-
Skinny: Saisons just may be my favorite beer style at the moment. I highly anticipated this one because it's rated the best saison in the world by Beer Advocate. It's good, for sure -- delicate, funky, raw. But it's a bit more understated than I expected. I'd put it third on the world's best saison list -- a bit behind Ommegang Hennepin, which for me is still king of the saisons, and the wonderful Boulevard Saison - Brett.