NEIPA 20
Brasserie Dieu du Ciel!

Medium: Capped + Stange glass.
Opacity: Clear with a faint cloud of yeast.
Color: Light gold with low activity.
Head: Thick foamy and frothy 3-4 fingers.
Legs: Very good overall.
Smell: Pineapples/Caramel/Buttery.
Taste: Mangos/Orange/Herbal.
Feel: Tropical/Piney/Slightly juicy.
Body: Medium oily with decent smoothness.
Carbonation: Moderate crisp.
Overall: Very good quality standard NEIPA.

Visual 8/10 - Flavors 7/10 - Sensations 7.5/10 - Balance 7/10 -
Freshness 4/10 - Intensity 6.5/10 - Complexity 7/10 - Appreciation 7/10

 

Serving: Bottle
Bottled: Nov-5-2019 (Consumed Dec-2)


Pours lightly hazy with some yeast chunks. Orange with a decent couple inches of cream-colored head. Decent retention; swoopy lacing. Guava and lime fruitiness. Flavor is of orange pith bitterness with some general tropical sweetness, and crackery malt. Juicy character overall with kind of a dry bite and medium carbonation. This is a pretty tight little IPA that hits it and quits it, as it were. It is definitely not quite a hazy juice bomb but it is a much more modern take on the IPA. Not too bitter, soft round fruity sweetness, juicy tropical sweetness. All in all a nice beer. To style for the most part, drinkable and interesting. Not textbook, not amazing, but decent and fairly solid overall.

3.75...4...4...3.75...3.75

Living in Montreal I've been a big fan of Dieu du Ciel for years and still regularly visit their Montreal brewpub. Unfortunately they seem to have been struggling lately with producing new innovative beers while many Quebec / Montreal based breweries are starting to produce excellent more modern beers and some terrific IPAs. Sadly this is very poor attempt at a NEIPA - the consistency is nothing like the hazy consistency one would expect from a NEIPA from the US and a far cry from many Quebec offerings such as IPA du Nord Est (by Boreale), Ta Meilleure (Lagabiere) and even New England IPA (St Amboise). The mouthfeel is not dense at all and the beer is far from opaque. Taste wise, it has some slight fruitiness going on but is really rather dull and tasteless. I expect better from what was / is still one of Quebec's great microbreweries.

 

A: Pours a hazy light yellow color with a very nice pure white fluffy looking head. Great retention and lacing.

S: Medium intensity. Pure exotic fruits with mangoes, pineapples and clementines. No malt profile left and not a lot of residual sugars in the smell. Somewhat dank.

T: Medium to low intensity. Little exotic fruits in the taste with clementines and light ripe pineapple. Kind of dank hops and a little bit of herbal notes. Malt profile is much more present in the smell. Same goes for the residual sugars. It's not sweet but it's a bit sweeter than expected.

M: Very light and somewhat fluffy (but not as fluffy as it could be). Not sticky at all.

O: This is a disappointing beer. Smells very good but taste is a bit boring. Still refreshing and definitely not bad.