Peche Mortel

Never before have I opened a regular sized beer bottle (341 ml to be precise) and been so blown away by it’s contents. Dieu de Ciel is a French Canadian brewery, with a microbrewery and pub in Montreal. They have a very wide range of creations that I am sure will make their own appearances here once we all as a collective try to taste-test them all.

Peche Mortel (Mortal Sin) is an immense beverage, delivering a real whollop of flavour. It is a very dense, strong stout with very bold roasted aroma. There is very little carbonation, but produces a thick, foamy dark head that lingers for the entire duration. The flavour is rich with flavours of coffee, caramel, hzaelnuts and wheat, but overall is incredibly complex and twists around the pallet; much like the serpent around the madam on the label.

Would go perfectly well with, you might have guessed it, a pork or beef roast (which was perhaps marinated in the beer itself?) 4 Heads.

St-Ambroise Oatmeal Stout

Imagine the perfect stout beer. A beer to drink alone, by the wood-stove on a damp & dreary April night. Perhaps complimented by hand-rolled, filter-free Drum cigarette & an Al Purdy poem. This beer has achieved a balance between raw and smooth. It pours like fermented oil; thick, heavy, and intensely black. This is not a bottle-drinker, as this beer comes to life in the glass (or in my case a wide-mouth mason jar). The head is slow-forming, but long-lasting, and is the deep-orange colour of a rich espresso crema. Diving face-first into a jar of this bitter, delicious, 5% ABV beverage, my senses were greeted by a smoky, roasty aroma of oatmeal, roasted barley, wheat, and four different varieties of hops. The taste is deep, dark and strong with accents of black coffee & cocoa. It has a mild sweetness and leaves a nice bitter aftertaste. Brewed at the St-Ambroise Street brewery in Quebec, this masterfully perfected craft beer is surely the product of years of experience. This is the absolute finest beer that I have crossed in the small town of Powell River, B.C. (Liquor sales are privatised here, meaning the prices are high and the selection is random.) I would gladly enjoy this hardy drink first thing in the morning with scrambled eggs for breakfast, or by the fireside with roasted venison sausage under the moonlight.

French Canadians have done it again.

4 & 1/2 Paul heads, seriously.