Dieu du Ciel Solstice d'Hiver (Winter Solstice)

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Sampled from bottle. Pours cloudy mahogany with a thin tan head. Creme brûlée and dark fruit aroma. Sweet with bready, caramel malts and dark fruit. Full-bodied but not an overly heavy FG. Nice winter warmer.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

Sludge looking. No head no lace. Caramel and brown sugar aroma. Taste has syrupy sweetness to start, plums and raisins. Burnt wood and a little medicinal. Medium /full body. Ddc has some great brews but I don’t think this is one of them.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Ok. This was pretty in your face upon first smelling/tasting. Very strong. Hardly any head. Getting a lot of cinnamon from the smell. pretty bitter tasting, but not in a bad way. Some carbonation and no lacing. Almost can't see through glass. Very thick looking, but smooth enough to drink relatively easy. But probably no more than the 4 pack it is sold as. :) Very good for what it is!

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Strong aroma is rather sweet, with clove, apple, caramel and honey notes. It pours a slightly hazy mahogany with a rather typical light tan head that leaves minimal lacing. Lip-smacking flavor has caramel, apple, clove and malt notes, as well as an undertone of hoppy bitterness that offsets the honey sweetness. Smooth texture has average body and just a little fizz, but it persists.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

11.5 oz bottle (sneaky canadians) .. . Pours a deep plum .. light headring, light lacing .. . burnt molasses, caramel, port, and oil .. . pretty nice barleywine, with the 2-3 years on this bottle, aged nicely .. . . quiet down or the cute bunny gets it!!

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 5 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 4 | Overall: 4

Light cola brown with a thin skiff. Banana? Why am I smelling a mild banana? This seems very strange and out of place. Cinnamon, clove, milk chocolate, too much alcohol for the low 9.8%, burnt brown sugar, floral/fruity hop I can’t decide what one it is. Aroma is morphing into nothing but wet wood and alcohol the longer it sits. Taste is also very woody with spice and too much heat. Some cherry some plumb, more wet wood, more astringent. Lingering bitter. Intense flavor but way too hot to make this any good. This might have been better if they could have balanced the alcohol better……this ruined my evening……my life has no meaning any more.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 9

Single brown bottle from the LCBO. Pours a dark copper-red with a creamy beige head, great retention and thick creamy lacing. Caramel malt nose with some burnt sugars, dark fruits and notes of alcohol. Creamy mouthfeel and fully bodied. Very well-balanced flavours that do not burn at all (alcohol well-hidden). Apples, caramel, decent hop bitterness and burnt wood in the aftertaste. A very nice winter warmer that goes down too easily.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 9

My first time trying this from a 341 ml bottle. Pours a cloudy ruddy-brown with a small tight cap that lasts and laces well. Very demure nose: some sweet fig and malt aromas, light earthiness, some roast, light fusel tones. Phenomenal mouth to this; silken and rounded smooth and mellow for a high gravity ale. Flavor profile has the front side showing sweet caramel malting getting well balanced with some sharp medicinal hopping, mid palate some decent complexity...finishes out with some increased bitterness dominating the lush caramel-fruit-roast tones and leaving a gentle warming. Not a hint of alcohol in this beer. World class barley winr with a twist...this is ready to drink without cellaring out the rough edges...very very approachable and fine drinking big ale.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 6

341ml bottle
10.2% ABV (as marked on bottle)
Milton LCBO Outlet #1 (Milton, Ontario, Canada)
December 9 2010
The beer poured a translucent dark copper colour with a no head. The aroma is sweet malt, caramel, sugar, and hops. The mouthfeel is medium bodied with medium carbonation. The flavour is sweet malt, dark fruit, and alcohol. Not one of the better Dieu du Ciel beers I've tried.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 6

One of the brews that was part of the Christmas tasting I put on at my in-law's. Nice english barleywine out of Quebec. Poured a dark copper colour with a noticeable amount of sediment in it. Starts off nice with the aroma. Some soft alcohol and fruity hop esters on the nose. Flavour is what gets me. Goes straight to the bitterness and finishes quite unbalanced. Like annoyingly bitter where there is no balanced between fruit and hops. Being a hophead. I greatly enjoy shitloads of hops, but this was a bit off kilter.