To commemorate the winter solstice, I chose an appropriate beer: Solstice d’Hiver, from the Brasserie Dieu de Ciel brewpub in Montréal. In their own words:

This noble winter beer is brown in colour with flaming red highlights. It has a complex aroma of fruits, alcohol and hops. Its taste is delicately sweet and liquor-like with a hint of burnt caramel. The aftertaste is accentuated by the wonderful flavour of hops.

This is an American-style barleywine with 8.5% alcohol, a nice mild warmer for the shortest day of the year. There are only five reviews on BeerAdvocate, not enough for a final score but the average is 4.26 out of 5 (all reviewers give thumbs up).