I have had this in the stash for a while but there is plenty of BAer respect so I should be pleased with myself for being so full of self control. The key is, of course, loading the stash with so much that you forget what you have. And layers of heavy boxes. Place them in the way and, well, who really needs to get back there when there's this right here?
Deep orange amber ale with a lacing rim and froth of white. On the nose, rummy. Rummy and yeasty and Christmas cake spicy. In the mouth, a tad winey and even a bit lighter than I might have wished but very nice. I get the whisky but it is a bit more rum at this point. Nutmeggy, too. Not nutmeggasaurous but Meg's nut is there. I notice that the base of the bottle is clear - it was filtered. Why filter something you are going to age? I am not suggesting there is cardboard or anything but there is a sense of something that has been stored. But it is nice enough. Needed a bit more zip to be... zippy - or has it just lived past its reasonably expected zippiness. Four years for a filtered beer is a bit much, no? Not sure.
Comments
The Beer Nut - July 7, 2010 4:09 AM
Is it meant to be aged? I noticed when Jeff reviewed it it had a best-before date in 2007.
FWIW, I've had filtered beers that have improved with age, so I don't think it's just about the live yeast.
Alan - July 7, 2010 8:25 AM
Well, if you put a vintage date on something one would expect aging is in the cards. Otherwise, why not Coors Lite 2010? But at 7.2% I was pushing it for four years.
The Beer Nut - July 7, 2010 10:07 AM
Yes, but if you put clear glass around a beer you have obviously very little concern for product quality. The glass, and the date, are presumably there for marketing purposes alone.
Alan - July 7, 2010 10:20 AM
To be fair, in Canada the bottle was sold in a nice little individual cardboard boxes, one of which now sits in the recycling box in the basement. It also sat in the dark. That being the case, it's best days were truly past. So, if Martyn is to be believed, there was a sweet spot in there between 2007-ish to maybe mid-2009. Or at least as sweet as there was to be spotted. I would not repeat the experiment.
Gary Gillman - July 9, 2010 11:41 AM
Sometimes I wonder if keeping bottles in paper or wooden cartons (same with spirits for presentation tubes) may impact quality over time. Theoretically, you don't want any air coming into the bottle and so it shouldn't matter, but still I have found keeping bottles in such containers for too long can lead to stale notes. Still, with a clear bottle, keeping it in the carton was properly the right choice. Interesting comments of Martyn regarding I&G: that may provide the key to me enjoying those beers, whose charms have eluded me to date (because drinking them too soon). I will lay some away.
Gary
Ilya Feynberg - July 9, 2010 7:36 PM
I've been trying to hunt down this damn bottle for a while now. Here in Dallas, Texas it can be pretty hard to come by. Any idea on where one might be able to get their hands on some? Perhaps online?
Martyn Cornell - July 10, 2010 7:20 AM
My comments about I&G should be taken as coming from the point of view of someone who doesn't like oaky flavours very much - can't stand barrel-aged Chardonnay, for example. So I'm biased. But there's no doubt the oak flavours in I&G do become more muted after a year, and even more so after two or more years.