I know, I know. Had I been on my game I would have written a post about the new Innis & Gunn Canada beer on Canada Day itself. Instead I celebrated Canada Day by flying all the way across this great nation from Halifax to Edmonton. Not so bad. But then, the idea of writing about the latest Canada-only release kind of got lost.

The bottle resurfaced a few days ago and I thought, hell, it is still July (it was at the time) and the beer is still on shelves. So why not?

The reason I have been wanting to try this beer is that I remember tasting the first one and quite liking it. In fact I wrote a review on it at the time (was it really three years ago?). It was, back then, my favourite I&G product because it upped the beer quotient, something that has always been my gripe with them (or at least one of my gripes – there is also that damned buttery character all their beer display). I felt they put a real beer into those Canadian whiskey casks.

The box for the 2012 version is quite lovely – a painted marsh scene from B.C. artist Gary Whitley. I like that they are using Canadian artists for their box designs. It is a nice touch.

The beer inside is light reddish brown throwing up a dense, off-white blanket that hangs around holding its own for a while. It has a subdued aroma of brown sugar, some maple and raisin-like fruitiness. Oak characters seem to fight over the general alcoholiness of the aroma.

The flavour is initially quite sweet – brown sugar, toffee, honey, maple syrup (appropriately) – backed by a light biscuit malt note. Relatively quickly, the barrel-aging takes over, offering up vanilla, earthy wood and date. Also floating around the palate is that standard slick, diacetyl, butterscotch flavour/mouthfeel. The combination of the initial malt-based sweetness (which is quite nice) and the sweet vanilla/butterscotch character fight against the beer’s effort to finish dry.

I am left with two thoughts about this beer. First, the base beer seems quite nice, but is mismatched by the oak aging. Instead of melding together, they seem to duke it out. They didn’t use a Canadian whiskey barrel this time, saying it didn’t leave enough wood character. Maybe that was a good thing. I wonder if with a different kind of barrel the flavour melding might have worked better?

Second, while it is not a bad beer, it doesn’t seem to rate up with the previous Canada Day versions I have had. It gets me thinking that maybe I&G’s idea of oak character is not what I am looking for in oak. And so the previous Canada Days (according to them) may have worked for me because the vanilla/diacetyl/butterscotch was more subdued. I am not sure, but it is an interesting theory.

49 days in barrel