Innis & Gunn Rare Oak Pale Ale

Innis & Gunn Rare Oak Pale Ale is een bier dat ik wel eens benoemd had gezien bij een bespreking van een barrel aged bier van Stella Artois. Maar wat is dit bier?

Laten we het even naGoogelen:
Innis & Gunn Rare Oak Pale Ale
Brewed by:  Innis & Gunn
United Kingdom (Scotland) | website
Style: English Pale Ale
Alcohol by volume (ABV): 5.80%
Availability: Summer
Notes / Commercial Description:
No notes at this time.
Added by biboergosum on 07-27-2014
(www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/10272/130905/)

EMH73, Apr 06, 2016
Pours a clear golden color with a thin half inch head. Smell is dominated by oak with some fruit and malt notes. Taste is very oak forward with some fruit sweetness and a hint of vanilla. Light bodied and moderately carbonated. Very drinkable, solid but not spectacular (www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/10272/130905/).

barczar, Nov 17, 2015
Flavor is bready malt dominant throughout, lightly sweet, with a floral hop finish and oak dryness that lingers (www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/10272/130905/).

Innis & Gunn Rare Oak Pale Ale
Brewed at Wellpark (Tennent Caledonian - C&C Group)
Style: English Strong Ale
Edinburgh, Scotland
Serve in English pint, Snifter

drowland (7803) - Georgia, USA - MAR 17, 2016
Golden pour with a nice off-white head, good lacing. Woody aroma, floral, sweet and lightly tart, doughy, definitely UK brew. Sweet flavor, floral, minerals, doughy, caramel, honey, tea, wood. Eh (www.ratebeer.com/beer/innis-gunn-rare-oak-pale-ale/277931/).
eRock_2013 (389) - South Carolina, USA - JAN 17, 2016
Interesting golden ale variation, bubbly golden appearance with aromas of flowery hops and sweet malt, no oak on the nose as far as I could tell. A bit more subtle woody oak in the flavor, light and vanilla-like. Sweet golden malt taste predominates, some herbal grassy bitterness with the oak in the finish. Light-bodied. Good but a bit strange, I prolly would not sample this particular I&G beer again but will consider some of their other offerings (www.ratebeer.com/beer/innis-gunn-rare-oak-pale-ale/277931/).

The Scottish brewery Innis & Gunn created their oak cask aged beer accident, as many great things are. The "beer" was originally used to impart a beer type flavor to a brand of scotch whisky, with the beer being thrown out. Eventually, some sympathetic workers realized that throwing away good beer was wrong and Innis & Gunn Oak Aged Beer was born.
...
COMMERCIAL DESCRIPTION - This refreshing pale ale has been matured over rare Scottish oak and then finished with the addition of Sweet Gale, which grows wild in the Highlands of Scotland and was used traditionally as an alternative to imported hops. Crisp, fragrant and light this beer is one for long summer evenings (www.beeryard.com/beer/detail.cfm?id=4256#brewery).

The Rare Oak Pale Ale is aged over Scottish Oak, last used in brewing over four centuries ago, with the addition of indigenous herbs (Elderflower and Sweet Gale). Crisp, aromatic and light, Rare Oak Pale Ale is made in a traditional pale ale style and carries high hop aroma and bitterness to complement the spicier, drier notes from the Scottish oak, according to the company.
The beer is brewed with Super Styrian and Whitbread Golding hops (http://cheersonline.com/2015/05/19/innis-gunn-rare-oak-pale-ale-highland-ale/).

Innis & Gunn Rare Oak Pale – Aged over Scottish oak, with the addition of elderflower and sweet gale (a medieval hops alternative) during the maturation. Sweet, but not aggressively so as in some Innis & Gunn bottlings, it offers distinctly floral and fruity notes — almost like juicy apple meets fresh violets. The vanilla-fueled oak plays out over all of that, with just the lightest touch of bitterness to even things out. 5.8% abv. (www.drinkhacker.com/2015/07/17/review-innis-gunn-rare-oak-pale-ale-and-highland-ale/)

The Highland Ale has been matured using Innis & Gunn’s pioneering Oakerators over oak chips infused with 18 Year Old Highland Malt Whisky. The beer has a fragrant aroma, tastes of spiciness, vanilla and caramel, with a smooth finish, according to the company. It is brewed with Super Styrian hops (http://cheersonline.com/2015/05/19/innis-gunn-rare-oak-pale-ale-highland-ale/).
Innis and Gunn Barrel Rare Oak Pale Ale
Barrel Rare contains mild carbonation and pours a medium white head on a golden body. It also possesses a wonderful ale nose with earthy hops and just a hint of oak and spice.
After the first drink, I noticed a heavier carbonation in the mouthfeel than visually, and an intriguing spice quality. The hops aren’t bitter but offer more of a piney, spicy quality to go with the earthiness. Interestingly, perhaps the rare oak comes into play here. Who among us knows what that oak did to beer 400 years ago when first used? The end result is an intriguing and enjoyable ale, one I would drink anytime.
Overall, it reminds me just a bit of an English ale, perhaps with a bit more sweetness from the caramel malts. But the drinkability of it, to me, is pretty universal. It’s one of those beers that would be hard to imagine anyone not appreciating.

The only thing I might have wished for here is just a tad more hop quality (yeah, that’s my American palate searching for something it has been conditioned to want). Otherwise, it’s just a really good light ale, with a medium dry finish, pleasant mouthfeel and a flavor profile that transcends a basic golden ale into something just on the other side of easy interpretation (www.alcoholprofessor.com/blog/2015/05/28/innis-gunn-brewery-drops-pair-of-smooth-ales/) (http://beerstreetjournal.com/innis-gunn-rare-oak-pale-ale/).

Rare Oak Pale Ale (Seasonal)
In this seasonal release, the craft pioneers of oak-aged beer have turned to Scottish Oak, last used in brewing over four centuries ago to age this brew, then add indigenous herbs to create a beer that pays homage to Scotland’s brewing past and epitomises the company’s bent for innovation. Crisp, aromatic and light, Rare Oak Pale Ale is made in a traditional pale ale style and carries high hop aroma and bitterness to complement the spicier, drier notes from the Scottish oak. Elderflower has been added during the maturation process, an herb to complement the hops and lighten up the fragrance. And finally, air-dried Sweet Gale, an herb grown and harvested in the West Highlands of Scotland is infused into the beer.
Sweet Gale was used by Scottish brewers in the Middle Ages as an alternative to imported hops because of its aromatic – and mood enhancing – properties. According to Stephen Harrod Buhner, award-winning American author of more than 20 books on nature and herbal medicines, the ancient beer was fabled to have had mildly narcotic qualities that would ‘stimulate the mind, create euphoria and enhance sexual drive.’ (To note, Innis & Gunn does not purport that Rare Oak Pale Ale carries the same qualities today.) (http://chilledmagazine.com/innis-gunn-introduces-two-beers-that-honor-all-things-scottish/) (www.barbizmag.com/bar-business-magazine-news/75-beer/4019-innis--gunn-introduces-two-new-beers).

Rare Oak Pale Ale (5.8 per cent ABV); a beer that gives a nod to Scotland’s brewing past and epitomises the national flair for innovation.
The Edinburgh-based independent brewer has carefully sourced ingredients native to Scotland for this autumnal release, maturing the golden pale ale in its pioneering Oakerators® over Scottish oak hewed in the Borders, before infusing the beer with Sweet Gale grown and harvested in the West Highlands and dried by the Secret Herb Garden in Edinburgh.
Founder and master brewer of Innis & Gunn, Dougal Sharp, believes that is the first time Scottish Oak has been used in brewing since the days of the Anglo-Spanish wars: “The majority of oak used for maturation in the brewing and distilling industries comes from America or Europe.”
“Scottish oak is more similar to its European counterpart in that it releases more tannins, which give spicier flavour notes. American oak is completely different: it contains far higher levels of vanilins and lactones, which produce a buttery richness and toffee-like characteristic.”
Crisp, aromatic and light, Rare Oak Pale Ale is made to a traditional style of pale ale and carries higher hop aroma and bitterness to complement the spicier, drier notes from the Scottish oak.
It has been brewed using a combination of malts to add a rich backbone to the beer and balance the earthy bitterness from the Super Styrian and Whitbread Golding hops.
Elderflower has been added during the maturation process to complement the hops and lighten up the fragrance, the final treatment being the infusion of air-dried Sweet Gale, used by Scottish brewers in the Middle Ages as an alternative to imported hops because of its aromatic…and enhancing…properties.
According to Stephen Harrod Buhner in his essay The Fall of Gruit and The Rise of the Brewer’s Droop, this ancient beer is fabled to have had mildly narcotic qualities that would ‘stimulate the mind, create euphoria and enhance sexual drive (http://theinnspectre.com/innis-and-gunn-rare-oak-pale-ale-launched/).

The people at Innis & Gun tell me that Scottish oak, which is found primarily in the eastern Highlands and the Borders, hasn’t really been used in Scottish brewing since the late 1500s, when the English were buying huge amounts of timber to construct the ships that ended up sinking the Spanish Armada. I have no idea if that’s true, but it remains a fact that the British Isles are hard-up for timber and have been for centuries.
Some wood and whisky trivia for you: back in prehistory, forests may have covered perhaps as much as fifty per cent of the Isles. Human settlement reduced this precipitously; by the time the Domesday Book was assembled in 1086, this number was down to fifteen per cent—so beer brewers and whisky distillers didn’t have that much with which to work. In fact, oak trees are so rare over there that some of them get their own names.
Timber is one of the resources that drove colonization of this country, and whisky distilling (and beer brewing) wasn’t terribly high up on the hierarchy of fresh timber. Oak barrels were purchased from Spain and other parts of Europe, and an initial impulse towards thrift led distillers to a happy discovery: barrels used to make sherry could help further season whisky. Around the 1940s, whisky producers started using ex-bourbon casks too. These days, that’s the norm, no doubt helped by the fact that you can buy a bourbon barrel for $100 and spend over a thousand on a Spanish oak barrel.
This is not to say that concerns about the availability of oak are quashed; Glenmorangie has purchased a forest in the Ozarks just to maintain access to oak, and one of the reasons you see big beverage companies like Suntory buying combinations of bourbon and Scotch distillers is to create some internal barrel economy. Wood provides at least forty per cent of the flavour you get in whisky, and presumably a similar amount in barrel-aged beer. In other words, the problems of modern distillers and brewers is much the same as five hundred years ago—all that’s changed is scale and scope.
But why tell you all that? Well, because it’s the only way to appreciate how valuable oak is, and how rare it is that Innis & Gunn have managed to use some Scottish oak to season their latest beer, Rare Oak Pale Ale (http://dailyxy.com/article/tasting-notes-innis-gunn-rare-oak-pale-ale/).

INNIS & GUNN RARE OAK PALE ALE
Bright copper colour, smallish white head. Bread, caramel, and vanilla on the nose, along with something floral and acetone on the nose—this would be the sweet gale. Sweet gale is a flowering plant common in Northern Europe and here, and it was commonly used to finish beer, until the advent of hops—I guess Innis & Gunn wanted a product as local as possible. Anyway, taste pretty much follows the nose: bread sweetness, musty oak notes, plus a medicinal quality. Mouthfeel is dainty, finish is light. Advertised as a summer beer, I’m liking it better in the fall.
Edinburgh, Scotland — 5.8% ABV (http://dailyxy.com/article/tasting-notes-innis-gunn-rare-oak-pale-ale/)

Tasting Notes: Innis & Gunn Rare Oak Pale Ale (5.8% ABV)
Malt – I&G Ale Malt, Golden Promise Malt, Crystal Malt, Wheat
Hops – Super Styrian, Whitbread Golding
Maturation – Over Scottish oak chips in the Oakerators® (think coffee percolator without the heat)
Color – Pale gold
Aroma – Fragrant spice and pine from the Sweet Gale, earthy hops and caramel malts
Taste – Crisp and light, with light bitterness from the oak
Finish – Very refreshing
Pair with – Seared scallops, barbecued meats, ice cream sundaes
Rare Oak Pale Ale is currently available in select regional markets
(http://chilledmagazine.com/innis-gunn-introduces-two-beers-that-honor-all-things-scottish/)

Appearance (4/5): Amber to copper in colour with a fairly clear body and a foamy, white head on top that is quite bare and patchy in the centre of the beers surface after about a minute.
Aroma (6/10): Sweet malts on the nose initially with some caramel and faint hints of vanilla. There is some faint alcohol to this one with a wood like, presumably oak aroma and further malts. The beer wasn’t bad on the nose but it could definitely have been stronger and more pronounced but it was pleasant enough.
Taste (6/10): Sweet malts that match the nose well, there is some light caramel and butterscotch coming through soon after before some vanilla and oak notes make themselves known. I could detect some faint alcohol flavours as well but the beer wasn’t particularly boozy and it wasn’t the strongest either.
Palate (3/5): Smooth and fairly light bodied, perhaps light medium and with plenty of sweetness from the start. There is touches of alcohol which was surprising given the relatively low abv. of this one and the beer features medium carbonation as well.
Overall (11/20): I was quite disappointed by this Innis & Gunn offering, it ranks alongside their Lager Beer and Rum Cask offerings as among the worst of the 12 beers from the Edinburgh brewery that I have tried to date and isn’t one I’d recommend picking up. The beer was far too basic and weak in both taste and aroma for my liking, with the exception of sweet malts and the breweries butterscotch calling card there wasn’t a whole lot going on with this one and it failed to hit the stop. The fact that some of the alcohol was also noticeable in a 5.8% beer was quite disappointing too, this one doesn’t come anywhere near what the brewery is capable of I’m afraid.
Brewed In:  Edinburgh, Scotland
Brewery: Innis & Gunn Brewing Company
First Brewed: 2014
Type: English Pale Ale
Abv: 5.8% (https://abarwithnoname.wordpress.com/2014/11/19/innis-gunn-rare-oak-pale-ale/)

Innis and Gunn Rare Oak Pale Ale
Colour: Pale gold
Smell: Fragrant spice and pine from the Sweet Gale, earthy hops and caramel malts
Taste: Crisp and light, with light bitterness from the oak
Finish: Very refreshing
Rare Oak Pale Ale (330ml, amber bottle) is available in Tesco stores nationwide for £1.99.
 (http://theinnspectre.com/innis-and-gunn-rare-oak-pale-ale-launched/).

Wat opvalt in al die besprekingen is dat het een gelimiteerde oplage is en tijdelijk en/of seizoensgebonden. Dat heeft misschien de beoordelingen (mede) gevormd? Maar aan de andere kant het is in de supermarkt verkrijgbaar?

Innis & Gunn is a brewing company based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Brewed in Glasgow at Wellpark (C&C Brewery), established in 2003 its beer has become the most popular British bottled beer sold in Canada (most notably in Tsawwassen), and second most popular in Sweden. Since 2008, the business is family-owned, following a management buy-out from its original part-owners, William Grant and Sons.
The beer was originally developed as a way of flavouring the barrels used by distiller William Grant for its ale cask reserve whisky. The original plan was for the beer to be discarded after it had flavoured the barrel, but the brewers noted that the process had an agreeable effect on the beer, and thus aging the beer became an end in itself (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innis_%26_Gunn).

Our beer’s distinctive depth of flavour owes a debt to good fortune. In 2002 a famous whisky distiller approached us for help. They were seeking to season some of their oak casks with the sweet, malty character of a full-flavoured beer. All the previous attempts had failed.
Eager to assist, we created a custom-made recipe and the resulting brew was put to bed in their barrels.
Thirty days on, our beer was thrown out and the whisky went in. During its maturation, the Scotch acquired extra qualities from the beer-infused wood, resulting in a greatly admired dram and many repeats of the successful experiment.
Then, months later and quite unexpectedly, our Master Brewer, Dougal, received an exciting call – this time it wasn’t the whisky getting rave reviews.
Some inquisitive souls at the distillery had sampled our beer after its time in casks. We did likewise…and the taste was remarkable. It had been transformed by the oak into an unusually refined brew.
Ever since that heady day we’ve dedicated ourselves to sharing the unique flavours of our oak aged beers with the world, proving that a little luck can go a long way (https://innisandgunn.com/about/the-story/#non-footer-content-wrapper).

Toeval? Mythe? Gewoon een mooi marketingverhaal? Of authentiek? Geen idee...