Dieu du Ciel Quintessence

Brewed by Dieu du Ciel
Style: American Strong Ale
Montreal, Canada

2005 RBSG Montreal Saturday. 2003 bottle at the brewpub. Red amber colour with a mostly lasting frothy offwhite head. Toffee, dark fruit, orange peel, light alcohol, grapefruit, woody, and pine aroma. Toffee, grapefruit, orange, dark candied fruit, with a fruity, oaky, and alcohol bitter finish. Full body, light burn, very warming.

bottle from jan 2003. opaque burgundy body with a huge tan head. beautiful aroma - sugar, chocolate, oak, and some dark fruit. Oak permeates throughout the body, very sweet, yeasty, malty, with chocolate notes, a bit of earthiness, and a touch of spice. very tasty. super sweet not unlike a scotch ale. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

RBSG 2005... Poured a hazy brown color with a thin, off white head that left light lacing on the glass. Aroma of oak, whisky, scotch, maple, caramel malts, nuts, and a faint citrus hoppiness. Taste of orange citrus, banana, honey, alcohol, and hops as well. Big thanks to DDC!

2003 bottle, served at DDC on 7/9/05: Pours a dark murky brown with a frothy cream-colored head with nice lacing. Aroma of dry Belgian malt and lots of complex oak, earth, and alcohol. Body starts with lots of rich caramel and butterscotch sweetness and a hint of cheesiness and warming oaky alcohol in the finish. Nice complexity and balance, but could hide the alcohol better. This could still use another year or two of aging.

Bottle... RBSG 2005... This beer rocks!... Clear, copper ale with a mid-sized, fizzy, khaki head. Good retention. Dense, malty aroma with notes of caramel, wood, mandarin orange, alcohol, light smoke, tobacco and dark fruit. The flavor is pretty hot and fairly sweet. Very earthy and fruity and balanced well with generous hopping. Full-bodied and oily with moderate carbonation. Lengthy, warm, sweet, malty finish. World class ale!

RBSG 2005: Damn it was hard to describe this beer there was just so much going on. Deep reddish amber color is senous and sexy. The nose has a strange, but tempting mix of bubblegum, oranges and tobbacco leaves. The oak is very present in the mouth along with subtle hints of smoke, oranges, caramel, spices and mildly yeasty. Finishing with an excellent mix of smoke and subtle spiced orange pekoe flavours. Excellent winter beer.

Bloody spectacular. I have been getting threating phone calls to rate this so that it has the necessary number to be official....so here goes: Went for a road trip to Mont Royal for the 6th Anniversary Party. This was first up out of fear it would be gone if we waited. Sitting as I was with the sun streaming in caused me to make a choice - either wear my shades in the bar (too cool) or use the glass of beer to block the sun. Clearly the right choice, for revealed to me was a beautiful rich reddish brown liquid that looked like the perfect colour to paint your apartment - or in this case tongue - with. Glorious aromas of hops and caramel and my favourite Canadian flavour. Maple, leeched from the Oak barrels which housed this nectar, infused this glorious candy-ish barleywine.- making it a decadent indulgance. What's that?....it isn't officially a Barleywine?...wow. Toffee and caramel and more maple and hops and where the hell was the alcohol. A beatiful introduction to an outstanding brew pub....at this point I could hardly envision there might be anything better still to come.

Wow. What a great start to the Dieu du Ciel 6th Anniversary party. Cask conditioned. Aged 1.5 years in a oak barrel that had been used for a maple liqueur. Dark amber in colour with a large off white head. The aroma was fantastic, lots of maple, hops, toffee and quite sweet. The flavour was of caramel, toffee, plums, hops, maple. Beautifully balanced, large body with no sign of alcohol. Finishes very smooth and creamy and long. As other people have noted this is definitely top 50 material.