Fantome is a true tradition farmhouse brewery located in Belgium. The brewer, Dany Prignon, pushes the envelope and creates some truly wonderful, but very small batch, beers all inspired by the Saison style. No two batches are ever the same from Fantome, which is both the blessing and the curse of this brewery. You can have the most delicious Saison you've ever had and the next bottle you buy may be completely different. It's all part of the fun, and risk, of Fantome.

Appearance: Fantome Saison pours a light golden straw that is hazy and impossible to see through. This isn't just a little hazy, we're talking hazy like a Hefeweizen! There's an anemic white head on top that looks precarious and vanishes too fast to even get a picture of it.

Smell: Upon pouring the first drop, the entire room smelled like Saison! It was funky, earthy and slightly tart smelling. When you stick your nose in the glass there is a touch of vinegar and some lemon, as well... almost like a Gueuze (Lambic). This beer smells amazing for a hot day. Dry and mildly tart, it just smells refreshing! Also, at 8% abv you don't pick up any alcohol. That's pretty impressive.

Taste: Bone dry. Let us repeat this for emphasis. This beer is bone dry. It's slightly tart, which is emphasized by the dryness (which is wonderful). There's a bit of tartness here, as indicated by the smell, and a great lemon aftertaste. There is no lemon added to this beer, so that's all from the yeast and is definitely a super natural flavor. This brew has a lot going on in it, and we're trying to capture as much as we can. There's a nice wheatyness, it's almost chalky but in a really good way. This would be a great beer for a hot summer day, especially after doing some yard work or playing some basketball... but watch out! At 8% abv the alcohol is imperceptible and will definitely sneak up on you. It's so dry and refreshing, and even the carbonation is just spot on! It's not too bubbly, just light and effervescent enough to be refreshing.

This is definitely a beer to seek out if you like the Saison style. Pour yourself a glass, sit back and be whisked to the Belgian countryside. Just keep in mind, Fantome is a very small farmhouse brewery, so every once in a while there are some bad bottles. We've probably bought at least 50 bottles over the years and ran into our first flat bottle the other day. But, that said, the variety is part of the charm and the risk is well worth the reward.

Brewed by longtime Massachusetts brewer, Dann Paquette, Pretty Things Beer & Ale Company was started in 2008 after he returned from brewing in Yorkshire, England. Jack D'or Saison Americain was launched first as the flagship beer, and Pretty Things hasn't looked back since. Dann started out renting space at the Paper City brewery in Holyoke, MA but has since moved on to renting space on a much bigger system at the former Buzzards Bay Brewery in Westport, MA. A bigger system means more beer, and more beer means we can more regularly get Dann's delicious (and pretty) beers. Jack D'or is a classical Belgian style Saison with a bunch of American hops thrown into the mix. The result? Well, let's see:

Appearance: This beer pours with a big, dense, pillowy white head. Not as fluffy and light as some Saisons, but you can immediately smell the hops! A dark golden hued, slightly cloudy beer sits under it... being a bomber, you get a second pour and this one is much cloudier from the yeast. In the past, Dann has told us to tip the bottle before opening to distribute the yeast as this lends it the flavor he intended.

Smell: The first thing you get, as mentioned above, is hops. You can literally smell it while pouring without even getting your nose close. This comes with a great spicy, phenolic smell from the yeast that really complements the the citrusy aromas of the hops. There is a hint of malt in here, but maybe only because I know it's there?

Taste: To sum this up as succinctly as possible, this beer is dry on the end and bitter up front through the finish. It's delicious! The carbonation is nice and light, a bit prickly even. The dry and bitter along with the carbonation would be great on a hot summer day! We can only imagine sipping a glass of this while sitting outside in the sun on a hammock. At the very end you get a hint of alcohol, but not in a bad way at all. This beer is dry and super hop and yeast forward, exactly what I like in a Saison with an American twist.

As you may remember from our Beer and Cheese Pairing Article: Eat Local, Drink Local, this beer goes great with cheese, especially one with some shallots in it. Give the pairing a shot, or just drink the beer. Either way, it'll be delicious!

We've here at DrinkCraftBeer.com have been digging craft beer in cans for a while now. So, when we heard there was a new canned IPA in Boston, we had to give it a try! We've heard a lot about Central City's Red Racer IPA, both that it's a great beer and that they were having some legal problems Bear Republic in California regarding the name and font. Let's forget the legal issues for a second; we're not here to discuss intellectual property, we're here to drink craft beer! Now, on to the beer:

Appearance: This IPA pours with a huge thick, taupe head that lasts and last and lasts! It just doesn't go away, that's some serious head retention! As the head shrinks, it just gets denser somehow. The beer is a dark copper color, like an old penny, and totally clear.

Smell: WHOA! HOPS! All we can smell is hops. This is literally like sticking your nose in a bag of hops. Very few IPAs we've ever had even come close to this one, there is no other aroma coming through. Go buy a bag of hops at your local homebrew store... we'll wait.

Got the hops? Good. Breath deep, really smell them. Now you've smelled this beer!

Taste: The beer starts out dry but not super bitter. Some light caramelly malt flavors come through but quickly give way to piney hops and a mild bitterness that stays on the back of the tongue. As much as this IPA reeks of hops, we expected more bitterness and flavor to be honest. It's good, but there's other IPAs that are drier and hoppier that we'd prefer in the warm weather. One note, though, is that as the beer warms more hop flavor comes through. It's a very good beer that we'd drink any day we could... it seems it would fit winter better. During the summer, we tilt towards dry and bright IPAs with a lot of bitterness. In the colder weather a nice, warming, flavorful IPA with a little more malt is what we want.

Wet hop ales (otherwise known as Fresh Hop Ales) are a little-brewed type of beers where hops are taken from vine to brew within 24 hours, skipping the drying step that allows hops to last in storage but causes them to lose many volatile oils. Many brewers go through extreme feats to get their hops this fast, but some go above the others. One of these is Rogue Ales in Newport, OR. They have launched a new line of Rogue beers called "Chatoe Rogue," a play on the french "Chateau" normally used in the wine industry. To brew these beers, they've launched what can only be called a brew farm, where they grow both malting grain and hops. In First Growth Wet Hop Ale, they showcase two propriety strains of hops they've cultivated, Independent (coincidentally the name of the town in which the farm is located, 77 miles from Newport) and Revolution. According to the label: "Raw hops are picked, stuffed into burlap bags, driven immediately 77 miles to Newport, Oregon and pitched into the brew kettle." Luckily, we didn't have to grow any hops to try this beer (but we do grow hops anyway), so that's what we're going to do right now!

Appearance: The beer pours a deep amber red with a light taupe head. Pour this one with mild caution as we were able to get about 5 inches of head from a pretty rough pour. Looks tasty!

Smell: Fresh hops are the first thing you smell... like being in a hop field. It's not overwhelming as many hop-focused beers can be, but rather delicate and complex due to the extremely volatile oils preserved by skipping the drying step of the hops. After this, you get a bit of malt. It's fleeting, but there's definitely some bread and light grain in there... a great complement to the hops.

Taste: At first it's fairly clean and crisp, just enough hoppiness to balance the malts which definitely show through a bit. After a second, though, medium bitterness comes in as does the hop flavor. The only way we can describe it is a juicy hop flavor. Throughout the taste the grain is there, but it's just a support structure for the hops, providing a great drinkable beer. Rogue definitely did a good job with this one; they made a beer that isn't over the top but showcases some great flavors in a manner that could be drank all night long. We can't wait to try some of the other brews from the Chatoe Rogue series!