Beer of the Week – Innis & Gunn Limited Edition IPA

In 2002, brewer Dougal Sharp of Scotland's Caledonian Brewery received an interesting proposition from whisky distillers William Grant & Sons: They wanted him to brew a beer that would be thrown away.

More accurately, they wanted him to produce an ale that would be stored in oak barrels for a month before being discarded, with the barrels then used to mature whisky, similar to the way used port, sherry and wine barrels are sometimes used. Dougal took on the challenge, brewing a strong and malty ale to be used for the process.

Of course, it didn't take long until someone to remember the old saying "waste not, want not", and workers in the distillery began filling empty bottles with the beer before it was thrown away. When word of this got back to Dougal, he decided to start bottling the brew himself, and after joining his middle name with that of his brother Neil to form the company name Innis & Gunn, he released the first bottles of his Oak Aged Beer in the summer of 2003.

In addition to producing a very unique beer (well, unique for the UK, at least - barrel-aging has become a bit of a trend amongst North American craft brewers in the last few years), Innis & Gunn have also followed a somewhat unique distribution model, dealing primarily with high-end grocery chains in the UK and state-run liquor boards in several international jurisdictions. And since our province's LCBO is one of the largest such organisations in the world, it makes sense that Ontario has been a big market for them. In fact, their flagship beer has become the top selling Scottish beer and second highest selling UK beer at the LCBO.

Another big aspect of their business has been the creation of variants on their beer produced as an annual limited edition release exclusively for some of their largest retail partners. Last year, for example, the LCBO received a version simply dubbed Limited Edition Oak Aged Beer that was brewed using darker malts and Slovenian hops, and oak aged for an extra month. And for this year's Winter Warmers promotion, Ontario has been given access to Innis & Gunn Limited Edition IPA (LCBO 16337, $4.95/330 mL), a beer that was first released in 2006 via the Sainsbury’s and Waitrose supermarkets in the UK and Sweden's government liquor stores.

For this variation, the extra aging is in effect, as well as the addition of hops to the barrels. As a result of the latter, the beer has some light floral notes in the aroma, a lemony undertone to the flavour, and a slight bitterness in the finish. But otherwise, it's quite similar to its sibling brew, with both aroma and flavour being very malt-forward, with strong notes of wood, vanilla and caramel. Also like the original, the body is rather light for the flavour profile, especially when compared to the big, meaty beers that are generally used by North American brewers for their barrel-aging experiments.

Even so, it's still a satisfying sipper, especially on those evenings when it's hard to decide  between a pint or a dram. I'm slightly inclined to question whether it can be considered a true IPA given the relatively low bitterness, but that's a road I've already gone down once recently, so let's just call it a unique and enjoyable beer and leave it at that.