Don de Dieu

Name: Don de Dieu
Style: Belgian ale
ABV: 9.0%
Serving: 341ml bottle
Brewery: Unibroue
Location: Chambly, QC, Canada
Weblink: Don de Dieu

"Gift of God", eh? Well now, if that isn't a statement of intent then I don't know what would be. Ok, so the excuse for such a bombastic name is that it was what Samuel de Champlain called his ship when he sailed for the New World in 1608. This initial trip resulted in the founding of Quebec City, so he is a pretty popular chap in Quebec as a whole, but he eventually found his way all the way up to Lake Nipissing in 1613, dropping his astrolabe up river from where I live in Ottawa. There it rested for 254 years until a boy found it in 1867, at the now appropriately-named Astrolabe Lake. Poor little mite never received a penny for it though. Anyway, enough history lesson, I'm sure you can go and find out all about that if you want. To the beer!

The beer pours a surprisingly bright orange-yellow, with only a faint yeast haze. (Unless you provoke the bottle!) The head is a thick layer of fine bubbles that fades gracefully to a thin film. On the nose the beer is surprisingly flat, with only a faint orangy and bready tone. In the mouth and, hello... where did the champagne come from? That's right, the first flavour is almost identical to the first rush of a good bottle of Reims' finest. It has the same toasty and sharp quality that a good blanc de noirs brings. The mouth feel is also surprisingly Champagne-like, with a soft mousse effervescence and the tingle of alcohol. This slides seamlessly into an orange and coriander combination, underlain by Greek honey. As the beer slips down your throat the toasted bread and yeast notes return. These fade after 20-30 seconds, leaving the honey to savour.

So... gift of God? Well, not bad, certainly. A very classy beer. It almost feels like you should be sipping it from a flute, not quaffing from a tulip. It has some of the qualities of a Trappist tripel, but with added zing. If this was how brewers 400 years from now choose to commemorate me then I'd be head over heels.