Behind the Bar: Dieu de Ciel Chemin De Croix

Author: Barmacral Tigana, April 2018

It is always nice to have the opportunity to review a beer from your home, and while Dieu du Ciel is based in a different province from my own, it is rare to see any Canadian beer here in the north of Sweden. Fascinatingly, due to the protectionist beer market in Ontario I never did hear about Dieu du Ciel, which is out of Quebec, until I arrived here in Sweden. Not only that, but it seems to be a popular favourite amongst beer nerds around here too.

Coming out of the bottle dark not-quite black this beer has a thick light brown head on it that stays for quite a while. A self described “old style India porter” this beer certainly hits the mark with a roasted burnt toast aroma to it. The first sip starts off with a smooth mouthfeel and milk chocolate but very quickly turns to an acrid burnt toast flavour that lingers for a very long time after it goes down.

Rating: 2/5 – Apparently this is done in the old style of the porter back before they learned modern methods of roasting malts and it makes me glad I didn’t live back then. I’m not a fan of burnt toast at any other time, and definitely not a fan of it in beer. Not going to finish drinking this one.

Beer Facts: The difference between stout and porter

What is the difference between a porter and a stout? Both are dark with similar flavour profiles and in fact if you look back to the origins, the porter came first. The english porter such as the one I reviewed above came in a few alcohol strengths and the strongest versions became known as a ‘stout porter’, which meant ‘strong porter’. At some point over the years the styles diverged and stout became its own thing. There is still an ongoing debate over the differences between the two and it can and does take up whole chapters in books. In general though porters tend to have a cleaner yeast profile and aren’t necessarily as heavy as many stouts are, though a multitude of exceptions apply.

Both stout and porter do have multiple subcategories in them today, the porter ranging from the brown porter to the baltic porter, with the brown porter being closer to a brown ale in style, and the baltic porter having more in common with a strong stout.