Sweet new year beer

Hello, and may I be one of the first to welcome you back to Waterloo and Imprint. For those of you that read this column last year, you will remember that we are focused on the wonderful gift-like intoxicant known as alcohol.

The first thing that I need to announce is that my co-writer Ed, the ponzy British, is currently taking a term off his writing career. Hence, I will be flying this bird solo. Second is that I am currently on co-op in Toronto and will be missing out on the fun and frivolities of Winter 2013 in Waterloo. 

This term, I plan on focusing more on the passion-filled blessing that is known as craft beer. Throughout Ontario and the rest of the world, there are countless craft breweries that are producing some amazing and flavourful beers that are spicy and full of hops.

For the most part, many of you reading will be perfectly happy drinking Pabst-Blue Ribbon. But I want to liberate you from the tasteless water that is passed for beer in front of you and give some examples of delicious brew.

This week we are going to be talking about the delicious and sweet Innis & Gunn Original. This beer was actually discovered by accident.  A distillery in Scotland was looking to produce a whisky that was flavoured with ale, and called upon a small brewery to supply them with a special beer to cure the barrels. The brewery happily obliged and produced the beer for the distillery. After the beer had sat in the barrels for 77 days, it was poured out and discarded.

It was not until some of the workers started to drink the beer that they discovered that it was delicious. After this momentous discovery the distillery called Innis & Gunn to tell them that they had to try the beer that they were pouring out. After that the beer became a product in its own and I&G started to produce it for consumption.

 This golden, honey-coloured beer is rich with the sweet notes of toffee, vanilla, and oak. If you are having a hard time tasting these flavours, the best way to do it is to wait for a burp.

Although this is a rather crude and possibly rude way of going about tasting beer, it is one that works and helps you taste the flavours that you are looking for.

This is one amazing beer and although it goes very well with flip cup, beer pong and other lovely drinking games, these are not recommended.

Innis & Gunn has a wide range of beers and most of them are available at the LCBO, not as much at the Beer Store (sorry), so go out and buy some and compare it to the regular plonk that is sitting in your fridge.

Anyways, if you have a recommendation for a beer to try or if you want to write rude comments to me feel free at  jer_gil@hotmail.com. I will try and check it as much as possible, so let’s raise a glass to Winter 2013, and remember, UW, keep calm and drink on.