Brasseri Dieu Du Ciel - Aphrodite

Recently, I realized that my trips to bottleshops were taking way too long. What should have been a quick 10-15 minute perusal of a shop's offerings nearly always turned into a 30 minute+ studying of every label (often checking the scores of multiple beers on beeradvocate.com on my phone as well). So to limit my time, I came up with a classification system for breweries.

Category 1: Breweries That Can't Miss- These select few breweries are breweries that I've yet to be disappointed by. I'm a fan of 99% of the offerings I've tried. If I see a new beer in the shop from one of these breweries, chances are I'm walking out the door with that bottle. This category would include breweries like Deschutes, Alpine, Alesmith and of course Cantillon.

Category 2: Breweries That Can Miss, But Usually Don't- If I don't see a new Category 1 beer on the shelves, I'm looking for something from this group of breweries. They consistently put out decent beers, make a few outstanding ones, and put out the occasional stinker. For me, this category would include Ballast Point, Bear Republic, Stone (especially their collaborations) and Sierra Nevada.

Category 3: Breweries That Usually Miss, But Occasionally Hit The Mark- In general, I'm avoiding beer from these breweries. I've tried a few of their beers and wasn't really a fan. However, they have surprised me with at least one "Wow" beer in the past, so I'm at least checking out the label if I see a new beer from them. This category would include Firestone Walker (their barrel aged beers are fantastic, but their year round beers just aren't my thing), Rogue, Mikkeller and BrewDog.

Category 4: Breweries That Are Never Close- Staying away. Staying far, far away. Breweries include Budweiser, Miller, Coors and Pizza Beer Company.

Category 5: New To Me- These are breweries I've never seen before. To me, these beers are always worth a look and often worth a try.

It's not easy to consistently put out amazing beer, so there are very few breweries that I would consider Category 1 breweries. One brewery that, for me at least, is a no-doubter is Dieu Du Ciel.

As I've mentioned in my previous Dieu Du Ciel posts, this Quebec-based brewery puts out some amazing beers, but they are not always easy to find. I've been on a mission to try every beer that they distribute this way for a while now and there was one beer that always seemed to elude me: Aphrodite (AKA: Aphrodisiaque). Péché Mortel may be the beer that Dieu Du Ciel is best known for, but Aphrodite never seems to be far behind in the conversation. It's a stout brewed with cocoa and vanilla beans, and one that I absolutely had to try. After striking out at multiple places that carry Dieu Du Ciel's other offerings, I finally found a bottle at Bottlecraft. The hunt was over!

Aphrodite pours a thick looking black color with a thin brown head that disappears relatively quickly. For a beer that's only 6.5% ABV, I was really surprised by how dense it looked. The smell was pure dessert, with huge notes of vanilla and milk chocolate. Some subtle hints of roasted malt and anise lurked in the background.

After the massive amounts of sweetness in the smell, I was pretty surprised by all of the darker flavors in here. The first thing I picked up was a lot of roasted malt intertwined with notes of vanilla, the roast clearing having the upper hand. Later, I picked up chocolate, but it's a much darker chocolate than the smell would suggest. The finish brought some notes of charred wood and even a touch of rye. The mouthfeel was noticeably lighter than a beer like Péché Mortel, but I really didn't feel like that hurt this beer at all. Aphrodite has more than enough flavor to make up for a lighter mouthfeel. A very interesting brew and, again, another fantastic Dieu Du Ciel beer. For me, they are definitely worthy of Category 1 status.

Final Grade: A-

Top 100 Beers Tasted: 39

Deschutes Brewery/Hair of the Dog Brewing Company - Conflux No. 1 (Collage)

Last year, two of my favorite breweries, Deschutes and Hair of the Dog, announced that they were planning a collaboration. While I was pants-crappingly happy when news of the collaboration broke, I have to admit I was a little taken back when they announced what their collaboration beer would be. Rather than getting together and brewing a new beer, Deschutes and Hair of the Dog chose to do a sort of "best of" beer, blending 4 of their beers (2 from each brewery) together and then running the result through an extensive barrel aging program. This idea was definitely original, but the beers being used just didn't seem to make sense together. Those beers are:

1. Hair of the Dog's Adam: A beast of an Old Ale, weighing in at 10%. When I tasted it, I picked up notes of raisins, spices, wood and tobacco.

2. Hair of the Dog's Fred: A big Golden Ale from Hair of the dog, also clocking in at 10%. When I had it, I tasted honey, apricot jam, candied orange and some hop resin.

3. Deschutes' The Dissident: One of Deschutes' highest rated beers (as well as one of the hardest to find), The Dissident is a sour brown ale that is released once every two years. I have a bottle that I'm holding onto and planning on opening in the near future. Other tasters have noted brett, anise, cherries, lemon, vanilla and wood.

4. Deschutes' The Stoic: Another member of Deschutes' Reserve Series, The Stoic was released for the first time last year to rather mixed results. It's a Belgian Style Quadrupel brewed with pomegranates and partially aged in wine and whiskey barrels. I'll be tasting this at a later date as well. Other tasters picked up notes of cherry, banana, clove, pomegranate and wine barrel.

After blending these beers (I don't think they released what the actual percentage of each beer used was, though it would be interesting to find out), the result was aged in rye whiskey, cognac, sherry, pinot noir, bourbon, new American oak and new Oregon oak barrels. You know, standard stuff.

Alright, so just to recap, this beer is a Old/Golden/Sour Brown/Quad aged in every barrel known to man. And this is going to work...how? If anyone else was brewing this, I would have stayed far, far away, but with Deschutes and Hair of the Dog behind the wheel, I had faith that this wouldn't be gross. There was really only one way to find out though, so I picked a bottle up at Bottlecraft and gave it a try.

Collage pours a deep chestnut color with some ruby highlights. A thin creamy head coats the beer and leaves sudsy patches on the top. The smell, not surprisingly, has a ton going on. I picked up a ton of dark fruit and whiskey upfront with notes of pomegranate, fig, raisin, apricot brandy, cabernet, bourbon, a good amount of wood and some faint traces of chocolate. Yowza! I don't think I've smelled anything as complex as this in a while.

The taste surprised me with a good amount of tartness throughout, I'm guessing due to The Dissident. I got a huge amount of dark fruit flavors in here as well as some syrupy pomegranate flavors, pinot noir, raisin, a cranberry-like tartness near the finish and some charred wood. As far as picking out the individual beers, I'd say The Dissident and The Stoic were the most evident with Adam definitely making an appearance in there somewhere. Fred is definitely the most tame beer of the bunch and I think it got overwhelmed by the bigger beers in here.

So does this Old/Golden/Sour Brown/Quad beer work? I'd have to say it did. I don't know how, but somehow this crazy concoction was super complex and pretty tasty. It was far from being my favorite beer from either of these breweries, but it was an interesting experiment, nonetheless.

Final Grade: B+


Top 100 Beers Tasted: 38