Fantôme, India Red Ale

Since my first time with Fantôme, my experiences havent been so great. My second bottle of the saison seemed a little tired - there was none of that tropical, dry hop business. I put it down to hop fade (it was an older bottle that I'd been aging after all).

I figured their India Red Ale would be a pungent, dry hopped to eff saison. Not really, unfortunately. The fact that I don't have notes for it suggests I was underwhelmed although I do remember three things quite clearly - the first was this bizarre herbal taste that I didn't recognise (funnily enough, in hindsight, the closest thing I can think of that resembled that taste was the Wacky Cabbage that we used to buy from East West). Second was a very bitter finish, but not a particularly pleasant one. Lastly, I remember struggling to finish it. Overall, a bit of a shame really.