Dieu du Ciel!

Jeremy's rating: ★★★★☆

Come for the beer, stay for the beer. And in the meantime, enjoy the great food and cozy atmosphere. The only thing missing is a good heavy burger.

Jen's rating: ★★★★☆

The selection of home-brewed beers was out of this world, and for an indecisive person like myself it proved to be quite the challenge to pick. The food was great too but with a smaller, limited selection of items, making it better for a quick snack. Great place to spend the afternoon.

Some weather calls out for beer and small plates — the first warm winds of spring, the chill of an incoming autumn, and the seemingly eternal cold of winter. And when I say seemingly eternal winter cold, Montreal has that in spades. 

Beautiful in the summer with bike paths along the Saint Lawrence River and plentiful outdoor cafes and restaurants, Montreal becomes brutally cold — although still charmingly inviting — in the winter. Seriously, I'm talking about weather in the single digits.

So with Jen and I fully unprepared for the cold and an incoming blizzard, we took shelter in the Dieu du Ciel! brasserie. Tucked away in the exceedingly hip Mile End neighborhood, the brasserie slash brewpub hits all the marks for a perfect place to warm up, get fed, and while away the afternoon or evening. 

First, and most importantly, the beers: The brasserie has a rotating selection of beers updated on a near daily basis based upon what is currently being brewed and is ready to serve. The selection hits all the marks and ranges from American-style IPAs to a variety of stouts to truly unique offerings like a green tea saison or a hibiscus wheat that were on tap while we visited. 

Almost uniformly, the beers lived up to the brewery's goal of delivering quality and audaciously unique brews. The espresso stout was as delicious and satisfying as eating a coffee liqueur chocolate, while the hibiscus wheat was slightly too sweet for our palette, but fully delivered on its premise. Dieu du Ciel! also offers an exceedingly well priced flight option. 

Dieu du Ciel! wouldn't be much of a brasserie, however, if it didn't also serve up some amazing food. Its menu perfectly captures the idea of small bites to complement its beers. We had the sun-dried tomato and goat cheese pizza, which was the perfect snacking size for the two of us. 

For the Mediterranean inclined, there are eggplant dishes while those of good hardy Germanic stock can bask happily knowing that there are pretzels and beer nuts ... all night long. Huzzah!

Finally, the vibe of Dieu du Ciel! hits all the marks for a place to cozy up while escaping the cold, while also being homey and old fashioned-seeming enough to also be comfortable in the summer. Really, the place hits all the marks. 

But with such good beer, everything else is just a bonus anyway.