Péché Mortel - Coconut
Brasserie Dieu du Ciel!

Dark brown with a moist tan head, low to moderate retention, no lacing. Roasty coffee notes, milk chocolate, sweet coconut, vanilla, molasses. Moderate to thin body, light carbonation. Lovely series of stouts.

 

 

Got in a BIF from Coronaeus. 11.5 ounce bottle into signature tulip glass, bottled on 12/17/2018. Pours opaque dark brown/black color with a 1-2 finger fairly dense and fluffy khaki head with fantastic retention, that reduces to a large cap that lasts. Fantastic appearance. Aromas of big milk/dark chocolate, cocoa, dark roasted coffee, coconut, caramel, brown sugar, roasted nuts, toasted biscuit, and dark/brown bread/crust; with lighter notes of molasses, licorice, dark fruit, smoke, charcoal, herbal, grass, pepper, pine, and yeast/roast/toasted earthiness. Damn nice aromas with great balance and complexity of dark/roast/black/bready malts, coffee, coconut, earthy hops, and light fruity yeast notes; with big strength. Taste of big milk/dark chocolate, cocoa, dark roasted coffee, coconut, caramel, brown sugar, roasted nuts, toasted biscuit, and dark/brown bread/crust; with lighter notes of molasses, licorice, dark fruit, smoke, charcoal, herbal, grass, pepper, pine, and yeast/roast/toasted earthiness. Light-moderate pine, herbal, grassy, peppery hops; and roast, charred, coffee bitterness on the finish. Lingering notes of milk/dark chocolate, cocoa, dark roasted coffee, coconut, caramel, brown sugar, roasted nuts, toasted biscuit, dark/brown bread/crust, molasses, licorice, dark fruit, smoke, charcoal, herbal, grass, pepper, pine, and yeast/roast/toasted earthiness on the finish for a while. Fantastic complexity, robustness, and balance of dark/roast/black/bready malts, coffee, coconut, earthy hops, and light fruity yeast flavors; with a great hop/char bitter/sweet balance; and no cloying, acrid, astringent flavors after the finish. Light-moderate increasing dryness from lingering hop/char bitterness. Medium carbonation and medium-full body; with a very smooth, and creamy/silky/bready/sticky/chalky balanced mouthfeel that is great. Light lingering resins through the glass. Minimal warming alcohol for 9.5%. Overall this is a fantastic flavored imperial coffee stout. All around fantastic complexity, robustness, and balance of dark/roast/black/bready malts, coffee, coconut, earthy hops, and light fruity yeast flavors; very smooth and dangerously easy to drink for the ABV, with the modestly bitter/charred/drying finish. Not overly bitter/charred. Fantastic balance between rich malts, fruity/nutty coffee complexity, coconut, and earthy hops. Mild residual sweetness with lingering bitter dryness. Definitely would benefit with some cellar time as with the base beer to smooth out the resinous hops. Coconut is not overwhelming at all, very well integrated with the base beer. A highly enjoyable offering, and outstanding style example as expected.

Look is an oily pitch black with about a finger of mocha colored head which lingers for a minute or two and then dissipates to a thin ring that remains present throughout. The aroma is bitter black coffee (I love it) and some earthy tones, also maybe some burnt coconut. On the taste the same bitter black coffee is present, but there is a sweetness that follows it throughout the palate that I’m thinking is from the coconut. The feel is pretty thick and slightly chalky with a dry finish. Overall this is outstanding as expected, I love coffee

Purchased on St. Dennis Street Montreal - consumed in Cambridge mass.

Surprised by the poor reviews; my favorite thing abut this beer is its subtly in the new world of over the top desert stouts. The coconut flavor is there; it lingers in the after taste and on your lips. This is a beer drinker's beer

It's a slight variation on the classic Peche; a well crafted imperial stout. The coffee adds to the roasted flavor and overall strength of this beer. Don't expect to taste like coffee.

An overall 4+ beer all round.

Bottle: Poured a pitch-black color stout with a large dark brown foamy head with good retention and some lacing. Aroma of floral roasted coffee with some light coconout notes and some black chocolate notes. Taste is mostly dominated by superb floral coffee notes with some subtle coconut flavours, slight residual sugar notes with some black chocolate notes also perceptible. Body is full with good carbonation. Enjoyable but coconut notes could have been more pronounced.

From a 341ml bottle, dated 12/17/18. Served in a tulip.

Pours chestnut-to-black with two fingers of cottony-soft beige foam. Retention is epic, slowly settling into something that looks like a thick sheet of foam insulation custom cut to fit inside my glass, slowly thinning out as it slopes up the sides.

Smells like Péché Mortel, a blend of mocha java and French roast coffees. But I do not smell any coconut, maybe something more like Demerara sugar, kind of sweet, earthy and raw, but not coconut and I’m smelling as hard as I know how. OK, maybe I smell some coconut? or maybe it’s just power of suggestion. Anyway, enough of this bumfuckery, it is time to drink beer...

Taste is exquisite, all dense and creamy, like a mouthful of espresso and creme brûlée. The bottle label promises me ‘woody coconut and vanilla’ and I guess I get the ‘woody’ but, otherwise, I’m picking up on toasted coconut sans vanilla, very subtle and not what I was anticipating. Nice, smooth bitter mocha character from beginning to end and, sure enough, a bit of flowery vanilla right there at the finish.

Feel is smooth, thick, creamy and dreamy, with super-fine carbonation.

Overall, Péché Mortel is the gold standard in coffee stouts and this is one of its finest variants to date. It seemed to me to be creamier and dreamier than the basic iteration. I shouldn’t have let myself get so hung up on the coconut.

With thanks to Dr. J. for hooking me up with my annual DDC variety box fix - always a highlight of the year. I’m going to try to space them out but, fact is, I’m already eyeing the next one.

 

 

Serving: Bottle
Bottled: Dec-17-2018 (Consumed Mar-27-2019)


A:
It pours pitch black with a big tan head like foam insulation. Excellent retention; intense lacing. (4.5)

S:
Toasty cocomochacoffee sweetness. Black coffee, cocoa powder, fairly biting. (4)

T:
Coffee and cream, dark chocolate, marshmallow that blooms into an aromatic coconut finish with some warming booze. (4.25)

M:
Velvet against the grain, smooth and creamy,faint alcohol, nice lingering, aromatic suggestion of coconut. (4.25)

O:
A tasty beer that is subtle in its gimmick and enjoyable because of that.
Much like the original and other tweaked versions in the important ways. The coconut flavor comes across as a clean toasted marshmallow sweetness in the nose and a bit in the flavor and as a nice coconut oil aromatic sensation in the finish. Nice beer. (4.25)

 

On tap at Thin Man Brewery in Buffalo, NY.

This one pours a glossy but thin looking black color, with a small head, and no lacing.

What happened here? The aroma is super weak, with smoke and stale coffee, no coconut, and a touch of dusty chocolate.

This is massively disappointing - Péché Mortel with coconut seemed like something that would have been an absolute slam dunk. There's barely any coconut here, just kind of an earthy nuttiness that could be construed as coconut. The coffee flavor itself feels old, stale and overroasted, and strangely boozy, like you dropped some cheap liquor into an old coffee pot. This is not the Péché Mortel that I have grown to absolutely love - it's not anywhere close to that.

The body is thin and wiry on this, and quite dry and astringent, and just not drinkable.

I'm honestly so confused and disappointed by most of the Péché Mortel variants from this year's Peche Day - I think this is a definite off year for the beer.

 

Someone forgot the coconuts.
Only seasoned tasters can detect a hint of something here, which seems to be more the thin epicarp of a coconut, as opposed to the middle, fleshy mesocarp. But, while not at all tasting like coconuts, there is enough bitter off-tasting "something" to ruin the classic Peche within. Thus, it doesn't work for me.
Indeed, it seems as though Du du Ciel! have mailed it in in 2019 with their variety of Peches. None of the new ones works for me and they omitted a 2019 bourbon release.