Clear dark reddish amber with medium beige head. Sweet aroma with toasted malt, caramel, wood and rum notes. Sweet flavour with toasted malt and rum notes. Finishes sweet with warming alcohol.

Clear amber with no head. Sweet and smoky aroma with peat, caramel and whiskey notes. Smokey flavor with whiskey, wood and caramel notes. Ends sweet with warming alcohol.

(6/29/08) Bottle sample at RBESG08 grand tasting in Plzen. Deep golden. Aroma of malt, a bit of wood, scotch and a bit of alcohol. Sweet malty flavor with caramel and scotch notes. Medium-bodied. Not too balanced.

Bottle from Kensington Wine Market Beer, Calgary
Golden color, with a thin persistent layer. It has a light aroma of toffee and fudge, very nice. Quite mellow mouthfeel, lean malt flavor, with vanilla and cookies, sweetish; there is also a touch of citrus fruits, maybe even sour. The final is not strong, with this mix of vanilla and citrus fruits. Not bad, but definitively strange.

[300ml bottle from Sainsbury’s, Reading] This is the 3rd I&G special edition beer I’ve tried, and was looking forward to it immensely. The previous two had been intriguing and slightly bizarre - the Cask Strength had tasted of green bananas and a million other things, whilst the IPA had been like a cream soda. Therefore my only expectation of this beer was of the unexpected! I drank it in an unusual location - my wife and I had rented a day boat on the Thames to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary, and I drank it drifting past the Queen’s back garden with views of Windsor Castle! It comes in the usual slightly over-packaged but nevertheless impressive cardboard box - the box is black this time. It pours a deep, rich but slightly dead-looking mahogany colour with no head. The rich, heady, tempting aroma is dominated by oak & red wine; it’s like sniffing a good Rioja. There’s some slight carbonation. The taste is... well, the taste is exactly as you’d expect from the commercial description. A mellow, woody sweetness like an old ale leads through some vanilla into a big hit of dark rum and an alcohol kick in the aftertaste, although this is not overpowering and it’s well balanced against the soft oaky foretaste. There’s is a slight syrupiness, but far less so than for other beers of this strength. Overall it’s another top-notch concoction from Innis & Gunn, possibly the most balanced beer I’ve tried from them. If . However, it lacked the surprise factor of the other two - I was almost disappointed that it didn’t taste of something peculiar like hedgehog and chewing gun! Having said that, perhaps the surprise here is that it’s an Innis & Gunn special edition that actually tastes of beer and what it says on the bottle, and isn’t totally strange!

330ml bottle at Le Mirage in Tromsø. Pours a dark amber body with a slowly fading, off-white foamy head. Aroma in the direction of dark honeyed oak. Malty taste mixed with vanilla and wood. Low, but noticeable bitterness to the finish. Well bodied. Not exactly the perfect drink to meat (19.07.2008).

normally i don’t like aged beer, or beer with cognac flavor. This one is different, very enjoyable beer, drinkable, notes of honey and whiskey, buttersmooth. enough bitterness to balance the sweetness. i could buy this again for sure.

Bottle, RBESG08 grand tasting Hmm, no ratings from RBESG so far... and yet the notes are there. Hope I’m not crazy. Orange body, small head. Dusty papery nose. Smoke. Smokey sweet taste. Fruity and something else. Liked it quite a bit it seems.