Innis & Gunn Vintage! As found in Winnipeg.
As much as I love Innis & Gunn, this one’s a bit of a reach. At *twenty* dollars each, you’d be excused for forgetting it’s just beer. You pay the Tube Tax. You pay the import beer tax. You pay the bottle conditioned tax, and the 100 day aging tax, and the American bourbon barrel tax, and all the beer words (limited edition!) tax. And you pay the high alcohol tax. Basically, anything you can do to make a beer more expensive has been done to this beer.
There is no mention of this beer on Innis & Gunn’s website, but the special limited edition cardboard tube the beer came in tells its story: beer made with fancy ingredients, aged in fancy barrels, then bottled with a dollop of yeast to keep it changing in the bottle. We’ve talked about this before – leftover sugar in the beer is converted by the yeast, raising the alcohol level and changing the flavour of the beer. It can do some interesting things, but it can also make your beer taste yeasty.
Had to publish this review before Dan has had a chance to try it, so I’ll be updating this post shortly. In the meantime, here’s what we thought:
colour
Brad – coke
Simon – coca-cola
nose
Brad – caramel, coca-cola, chocolate
Simon – plum, grape, wine
taste
Brad – vanilla, caramel, very easy drinking, coca-cola, cream soda
Simon – mild alcohol for 7.7%, cherry coke
finish
Brad – easier, interesting, rum & coke
Simon – chocolate
overall
Brad – 8/10 but 5/10 at the price
Simon – 7.3/10 including price
free association
Brad – rum & coke fucked a guiness
Simon – chocolate mousse cake
UPDATED! This bottle got shaken rather significantly flying it home and then driving it over to Dan & Laura’s. The bottle suggests letting it settle for a mellower, less active quaff, but I didn’t read that until after I poured it for them – there’s a lot of words on the packaging. Here’s what they thought:
nose
Dan – cherry, homemeade wine a few days sour, yeast, graham cracker, chocolate
Laura – yeast, tortilla, grandma
taste
Dan – under extracted espress, dark chocolate, light but fizzy textre, too carbonated, copper
Laura – espresso, tangy, warm pepsi
finish
Dan – bitter, buckley’s medicinal, bile, fine at first, gets gross
Laura – short, like drinking a burp
overall
Dan – 4.5/10
Laura – 5/10
free association
Dan – post vomit nausea
Laura – sour espresso
Innis & Gunn Vintage 2015 – 7.7% 500ml – $19.99 – Scotland
Try it? Yes! Buy it? Not with your own money.
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