Sweet Summer Savouring.

Recently, this was brought to my attention:



It's the 2011 Canada Day Innis & Gunn limited edition cask. And it's pretty effing special.

This is the third year that Innis & Gunn has crafted a special Canadian edition, each year with a different recipe. I've only just found out about it, and I'm in love. The first sip was so incredibly enjoyable, so smooth and sweet and delicious that my enjoyment quickly gave way to the bummery realization that finishing it would mean it would eventually be over, no matter how long I savoured it. I didn't want it to be over.

At 8.3% alcohol, drinking one is like drinking two normal beers, but you wouldn't know it from the taste!



I'm by no means a beer-tasting expert. No, really! Okay, I do consider myself a wee bit of a connoisseur, in that I prefer to savour premium brews and try new things rather than choke down the low-rent stuff.

While I don't subscribe to any beer-connoisseur snobbery or claim to know anything about the discipline specifically, I will tell you that this mindblowing tipple tastes exactly the way it is described on the box:

"Creamy with toffee and oak complimented by a vibrant, spicy Fuggles hop bitterness. Warms and mellows on the palate revealing a delicious malty character with hints of vanilla".


Yes, it comes in a box (clear-bottled beers can go skunky before their expiry date, hence the box: if you decide not to drink it right away, it will be protected from damaging light). It's also a little on the expensive side. But it's so worth it. It's not available at the beer store, only at the LCBO in Ontario (I don't know where it is sold in the other provinces, but I'm sure it must be). If you enjoy a sweet, creamy, caramelly, beery treat, it's worth going out of your way to get it.

Best beer I've ever had.