That's Winter Solstice, for those of you who do not speak French, myself included. I did not even plan to do two Dieu Du Ciel reviews in a row but here we are. In that case, I will keep this one shorter and leave all the bits about the brewery and website out. However, if you are interested, here is the website. Click on St. Jerome for the brewery itself and that's how you can discover all their great beers that are usually available at the LCBO (including Corne Du Diable, which as I mentioned before, is a delicious hoppy IPA).
I will tell you a bit about this beer though. It is a Barley Wine. I have never tried a Barley Wine. I like wine, it's okay though, definitely not in love with it. Barley? Sure! Barley Wine? I don't know, but okay, let's try it. The website's description of this beer is actually amazing and I don't want to copy and paste but just mention that it's brown, bitter, hoppy, high alcohol (9% ABV!) and has flavours reminiscent of red fruit. There's way more described here and it makes me feel like I'm reading something by Lord Byron. Great! I am very impressed by this brewery. That Aphrodite beer I reviewed last week was the most chocolaty 'chocolate stout' ever. Now from reading the description, I don't think this is going to be like other winter ales that are out now. I love winter ales and I really should review one soon. If you're interested in trying one: the St. Peter's Winter Ale is my personal favourite and has the strongest/darkest flavour; the Great Lakes' Winter Ale is also fantastic, more of a balance in darkness and comes in a big bottle; and Samuel Adams' Winter Welcome is a good choice for value and is pleasant but a bit lighter for a winter ale.
Wow, this pours out really thick and really brown. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a beer like this before because it's not exactly thick and black like a stout or porter. It does smell a bit like a winter ale, so maybe I should expect something along those lines. Woah, very strong flavour. Very sweet and the alcohol has a huge presence. It says it's very bitter and hoppy but I'm finding the bitterness is that of a vodka or rum and not of a hoppy type of bitterness that I usually love. This is quite intense but I'm not sure if I'm in love with it. It's really thick and syrupy too which seems to bring out more of the sweetness and high alcohol content. I feel like I'm almost drinking cough syrup. Maybe this is what barley wine tastes like? The bitterness lingers on this too. At this point I am leading more towards disliking this beer. I do have to give it points for being unique and it doesn't taste like a "shitty cheap beer" by any means but I just don't really find these flavours or the texture of the beer very pleasant.
I'm going to try a sip after eating a cracker to see if the taste changes even though I feel like this might be a waste of time. Well, I think I tasted a bit more of the hops that time. Now that I'm getting more into the beer, it tastes a bit like a Trippel Belgian trappist style beer, like a Chimay or something. More bitter though, heavier, and more like cough syrup. I am pretty surprised by my reaction to this beer because the description made it sound like it was going to be a real treat and while it is definitely an interesting beer it's not a very pleasant one. It's hard to recommend this beer, I really could only do it if I knew someone who wanted a harsh cough-syrupy-like beer.
65 %: It's not a bad beer and I know Dieu Du Ciel is a strong brewery but this is really unpleasant. It really hits you like a swig of cough syrup with it's thick texture, high alcohol bitterness, and strange sweetness. Almost like a winter ale gone bad and mixed with rum. I can't really recommend this but I also can't slag it for poor quality - it doesn't taste like a 'shitty cheap beer' but it also doesn't taste good.
No comments:
Post a Comment