Stockholm Beer 2007: Canadian tasting with the beer writer Stephen Beaumont

Second tasting was hold by the famous beer writer Stephen Beaumont and focused on the new Canadian beers that Oliver Twist is providing for us this year at the Stockholm beer.

It is always fun to see new beer countries in Sweden and when the tasting is hold by a very famous beer writer of Canadian Beers it is even more exciting. Stephen is a beer writer, both as a author of beer books and also a popular writer at many of the big US and Canadian beer magazines.

At this years festival Oliver Twist is providing around 20 beers from 10 different breweries from Canada and with a focus on the east coast of the country. And you can see that the breweries are inspired by the Belgian counterparts, so we tasted a list of very good belgian inspired beer. But for us it was more interesting to taste some of the more normal beers of the style ESB, Stout and IPAs.

Did not get the full list of beers that we tasted but here is the beers that I had time to write down.

1. Black Oak, Summer Saison
2. King Brewery, Pilsner
3. ALLEY KAT BREWING Co, Herbstweizen
4. MILL STREET BREWING Co, Coffee Porter
5. Unibroue La Terrible

Very nice beers and something to start with when you want to test what beers in Canada is all about.

But my personal favorite of all the Canadian beers was one of the available beers on draught. That meant the Solstice d` Hiver from the brewery DIEU du CIEL BRASSERIE in Montreal, Canada. Dieu du Ciel Solstice dHiver (Winter Solstice) as a beer style is barley wine (to me a American styled barley wine compared to a traditional English one) with a amber color, thin off-white head, raisin touches in the malt base, alcohol with some brandy flavours, chocolate and vanilla notes. A very potent winter ale that was a very interesting sip of beer and one of the winners during the first day at the festival.

DIEU du CIEL BRASSERIE is a brewery and pub in Montréal, Quebec. The brewpub is one of Montreal's leading brew pubs. The place is owned by three former microbiology students and self-proclaimed beer aficionados. All the beers at Dieu du Ciel are brewed right on the premises; patrons can observe fermenting and brewing paraphernalia that make up part of the bar's decor. Dieu du Ciel's has a number of porters, stouts or ales boasting with intriguing names like 'The Pagan', 'Sunday Morning Mass', 'The Resurrection' and 'The Goddess of the Night'.

If you want to learn more about this brewery and why the guys started the brewery, check out their site and history over at; URL.


Reporter from Ale Street News (left) and people from the Canadian brewery DIEU du CIEL BRASSERIE (right).