Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 3 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6
[January 2007, from Waitrose, Marlow]. I note that the beer is stronger than your regular ale, but comes in a smaller bottle, so I assume the extra 40p of my hard-earned cash I had to part with was for the value-added packaging! Having finally extricated my beer and made a quick visit to our cardboard recycling box, I was able to get at my beer and... woah, this is a weird one. The horrible sour smell from the bottle nearly put me off drinking it, but I persevered. The texture is smooth, but it’s the taste that grabs your attention. Tastes sweet, then more sourness, then as you get into it I caught glimpses of malt, vanilla, unripe bananas (I think this accounts for the sourness), ripe bananas as well, whisky, lemon and caramel. Oooh, was that some sawdust as well?! And.... errrm... margarine? I got the impression that someone is going for the complexity of a trappist beer, and simply hasn’t had enough practise at at mellowing the flavours so they complement one another. Instead the different levels of taste fight for dominance in your mouth with the sour green banana coming back to give the others a good hiding at regular intervals. So we have enormous depth but no refinement - the layers of flavour simply don’t sit easily with each other. Some will find this beer interesting, others simply bizarre - I’m wavering between the two. It’d probably be a good introduction for a newcomer to the noble art of beer tasting, and certainly provokes discussion. However, at present I’m not convinced that this beer is actually designed for drinking! I know for a fact I’ve never tasted a beer like this! Maybe it would mellow with cellaring (although I firmly believe that beers should be sold at the ideal drinking age, so I’m not having with any of this storage malarkey!). I also note that the brewers have only been in business since 2003, so I’ll be interested to see what their future beers are like - this one is intriguing and shows promise, but needs a little more time spent getting the recipe exactly right - if they keep persevering with this I think it could become a super beer. Perhaps it would also help to bottle condition it? Errm... is that cough mixture coming through now? *hic* feeling a bit drunk... and very confused... what just happened to my mouth?
Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 3 | Flavor - 3 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 3
Bottle, BB West Kirby. Pretty nasty sweet, woody whisky flavour. Not what I really look for in a beer. Seems somehow artifical. 77 day process? Don’t waste yer time.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
Bouteille 330ml, courtoisie de Hogtownharry. De couleur dorée foncée et claire. Nez assez boisé (fût de chêne), fruité (pêches sucrées, léger d’agrumes), malté de caramel butterscotch sucré et avec des notes de toffee et de houblon herbeux aux notes florales. Moyenne-mince en bouche avec un pétillement moyen-bas et une texture moyennement crémeuse et aux faibles notes liquoreuses (whisky). Moyen goût fruité (abricots, léger d’agrumes, notes de pêche, de marmelade et traces de pommes) accompagné d’un goût de vanille boisée (fût de chêne asséchant, présent toute la gorgée) lors de l’entrée en bouche auquel se rajoute un goût malté de caramel butterscotch avec des traces de biscuits au miel et de toffee pui en finale l’on retrouve une légère amertume de houblon herbeux ainsi qu’un léger goût de whisky sucré. Post-goût long et sec, composé d’un goût boisé (fût de chêne), légèrement amer de houblon herbeux et avec des petites notes aigres de fruits (noyau de pêche et léger zest d’agrumes).
jake65 (5821) reviewed The Original from Innis & Gunn Brewing Co. 17 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 6
Bottle: Looks like cream soda gold with a large white head. Aroma caught me off guard with a vinegar hint up front, before mellowing out into some softer notes of bourbon. Sweet flavor with lots of bourbon and some malt and toffee. Wow, plenty of woody notes. Still a little sweet comes through.
yngwie (24278) reviewed Blonde from Innis & Gunn Brewing Co. 17 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
Bottle. A clear, golden beer with a small off-white head. Sweetness, vanilla, cookies, some butterscotch and a light fruityness in the aroma. Vanilla-sweet and oaked flavor, fruity, but on the malty side, with malt, grains and butterscotch. Medium body, and a weak, short, fruity and malty finish. A rather unusual beer, but I liked it. Could do without the butterscotch though, but there’s not enough of it to ruin the beer. (080305)
gunnfryd (21926) reviewed Blonde from Innis & Gunn Brewing Co. 17 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5
Bottle. Golden colour with a white head. Aroma is sour , dry, malt, butterscotch. Flavour is sour, dry, malt, caramel. A special beer.
TET (6603) reviewed The Original from Innis & Gunn Brewing Co. 17 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5.5
Beautiful copperbrown beer with thin white head. Aroma is sweet but still there are lot of nuancees. Flavour is balanced: bitter and malts Almost light to drink and lot of quite much of carbonation. Oak Aged Beer medium beer: there is nothing annoying and nothing brilliant and I can’t find oak barrels even I know it.
Fin (18365) reviewed Blonde from Innis & Gunn Brewing Co. 17 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 3 | Flavor - 3 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 3
[i] [b] Bottle from Sainsburys, Kidlington, Had this 30-03-08 [/i] [/b] Gold in color white bubbly head, busy on the carbonation front, sweet vanilla, oaky, I find these beers really quite boring and lacking somewhat, not my thing.
pivnizub (12821) reviewed The Original from Innis & Gunn Brewing Co. 17 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 4 | Flavor - 4 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 4.5
Bottle:Deep golden, small, but stable lacy white head; wood, vanilla and turpentine in the nose; moderate sweetish flavour, medium bodied; vanilla aromas in the sweet-bitter finish. Who needs this.....?
MoritzF (10566) reviewed The Original from Innis & Gunn Brewing Co. 17 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5.5
(33cl bottle) Clear, golden colour with a medium-sized, slightly off-white foamy head. Sweet and slightly oaky, barrique-like nose with peaty accents, notes of alcohol, vanilla and a restrained hops character. Sweet flavour, medium bodied with a soft mouthfeel. Soft malty base with distinctive notes of vanilla, toffee and slightly peaty, whiskey-like flavours; medium-dry, sweet and faint bitter finish with shy hoppy notes and too much of vanilla and alcoholic accents. It´s like in the wine, I just must not have barrique flavours (05.03.08).