Dieu du Ciel Route des Épices

Bottle. Dark amber good beige head. Bready malt and way too much BLACK PEPPER. Smooth body, but pepper coats and burns the palate. Interesting, but difficult to drink.

From a 12 ounce bottle purchased at Belmont Station in Portland, OR--Poured a light amber body with a medium whitish head. Sweet nutty, earthy, and spicy nose. Grainy, spicy, peppery body. Lots of great pepper presence. Balanced out with some sweet caramel and a great rye spine. Very very good!

Appearance: Pours a clear, medium brown body with a medium-sized, frothy, ivory-colored head. Smell: Sweetish, grainy malt scent with only very, very minor hints of rye and pepper. Taste: Pale malts, a touch bready, though with not much sweetness present. Though mild in the nose, the peppercorn taste is very distinct once you start drinking it down. Sure, you got your spicy rye character, but the pepper really leads the charge and lasts all the way, unyielding, till the finish. Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied. Medium carbonation. Drinkability: Unique and interesting in its shocking display of peppery punchiness. A beer that begs, along with the drinker, to be paired with food.

bottle form Rahmen Dep. Pours brown amber. Aroma of spices, little else. Palate featured prickly carbonation. Flavor slightly sweet of malts and caramel, balanced with black pepper spiciness. Definitely a novelty, but flavor didn’t have enough complexity to complement the pepper flavor for me.

aroma of fresh spices(rosemary, pepper, rye), light licorice and caramel. flavor is totally pepper. some nutmeg, anise, caramel. burns. dark brown, murky, medium tan head. never had anything like this. this would taste good with a steak.

Brown amber with a cream head. Aroma is rye, pepper, caramel, faint coffee. Taste is pepper tons of it, just mainly the spice.

An amber color with an off white head. The aroma is malty with some rye and loads of black pepper. AAAAHCHUUU! The flavor is really hot with some caramel, rye, and loads of ground pepper. Why make a beer like this? Overall it sucks hard.

Bottle from Sam’s in Durham. Amber pour with relatively small head. Yep, there’s pepper in it, but it’s not necessarily dominating unless you think about it too much (case in point: my wife liked it for a couple of sips until I identified the pepper and then she didn’t want anymore because that was all she could taste). Rye, biscuit, caramel, and yes, pepper on the nose with added caramel and cola on the palate. Somehow fruity even. Nice spicy pepper on the finish. A great brew, even if a bit of a novelty.