Action Figures & Their Beers - Gunn Play, Part 3

by Beedo Sookcool
on 2013-03-11, 19:04:05

INNIS & GUNN ORIGINAL

So, concluding the current theme of high-test beer + evil transforming firearms, Innis & Gunn’s Original brew gets matched up with the Original Megatron. Or rather, the original iteration of Megatron, as represented by Takara’s Masterpiece Megatron. Both are huge (the bottle is a whopping 750 mL, the toy over a foot tall), strong (the beer’s an aggressive 6.6% ABV and Megatron ain’t called “The Slag-Maker”* for nothing), and uncompromising (nothing but the best is expected in both cases).

* Which has a completely different connotation in Britain.

The labels of these Innis & Gunn brews are jam-packed with information and textbites, so here we go with the Original text: “Oak aged like no other beer.” “Brewed in small batches / Hand-crafted Scottish beer.” “Smooth Scottish beer with hints of toffee, vanilla, and oak.” “Carefully matured for 77 days prior to bottling.” “This honey-hued beer is matured over the finest American Oak heartwood to unlock the natural flavours from deep within the oak grain. These luscious flavours of toffee, vanilla, and oak perfectly balance the beer’s malt backbone and light hop fruitiness. Its mellowness and depth of flavour makes it a great accompaniment to food like grilled seafood, juicy steaks and mature cheese.” and, very helpfully, a “Serve at 4° to 6° C” (39° - 43° F) suggestion. Again, I’m a bit too much of a brute-force gourmand to be able to instantly recognise toffee, vanilla, and oak components in the flavour, but I’ll tell you what I do get . . . .

The aroma is rich and mouth-watering. The taste is smooth and malty, but has a spike of sharpness towards the end that grabs your attention and your taste buds. I would even argue that as the temperature of the beer gets toward the higher range of potability, there’s a suggestion of custard in the flavour. (That’d be the vanilla / toffee component, I guess.) The aftertaste, though initially a tad on the bitter side, soon fades to a savoury tang and keeps your mouth watering long after you swallow a mouthful of the stuff. So, once you factor out all the highfaluting connoisseur talk, what you get is still yummy and delicious and long-lasting value for money in the taste department. It’s a bit too strong for just sitting down and drinking lots of, but Innis & Gunn Original is nonetheless well worth a try, and perhaps worth considering becoming one of the beers you’d have with a meal. I used about half this ¾L monster (they also sell it in the smaller 330 mL bottles) to wash down some prawn linguine, and it worked out very nicely indeed. And that brings our Innis & Gunn / Megatron 3-parter to an end.

Drink this if you also like: Any other potent, rich, sharp, strong-flavoured beer, Brew Dog offerings, red beers.