Name: Solstice d’hiver
Style: Barleywine
Brewery: Brasserie Dieu Du Ciel! website
Country: Canada
Region: Montréal, Quebec
ABV: 9.8%
How served: 11.5 oz bottle poured into a La Mère Noël glass.
My Overall Opinion: Very Good 
I paired this beer with: Pecan pie, a pre-thanksgiving snack.
Tasted on: Thursday November 26, 2009
Note: This would have been a great beer to end the evening with, but I had it as an aperitif. I think it would do well if it was aged a year or two.
This is the 1st of my daily Christmas/Winter beers which I will be having until Christmas Eve.
From their website: Solstice d’hiver (Winter solstice)
Barley Wine – 9% alc./vol.
341 ml (11.5 fl.oz.)
This noble winter beer is brown in colour with flaming red highlights. Its taste is delicately sweet and liquor-like with a hint of burnt caramel coming from the malt and a prolonged boiling time. It is a very bitter beer with aromas of hops and alcohol, and flavours reminiscent of red fruit brought by the English-type yeast we use to ferment it. The aftertaste is accentuated by the wonderful flavour of hops. Solstice d’Hiver is brewed only once a year, and is then aged for 4 to 5 months before being sold. This aging process is necessary to achieve an ideal equilibrium between the sharp bitterness and the other flavours in the beer.
Solstice d’hiver is brewed only once a year, at the end of the summer. It is then aged for a few months in order to attain a perfect balance in taste. Then, it is sold starting mid-December of each year, until stocks last.
The Solstice d’hiver was born in our Montreal brewpub in December 1998
