Tullibardine - 1488

I get the distinct impression that because I bought this in a garden centre at above regular price, this bottle may well be all mouth and no trousers. It looks very fancy with its white and gold label and its white and gold embossed cap but I've been fooled before especially by flashy bottles that claim to contain "Whisky Beer." By a long way the best example of a whisky beer is the Innis & Gunn whisky cask and it is, almost exclusively, because of that beer that I decided to blindly give free reign to its potentially ill-conceived brethren. Taking this off the shelves was a shot in the dark, I figured that no company with any semblance of a conscience could sell ANY beer for the £5 I paid for it without it being any good...

My hopes are raised slightly as I read that this is a Scottish beer. Why? Well if there are two things the Scottish know it's whisky and it's how to use whisky to make other things AWESOME. The pour is frisky and the head starts out as sea foam but settles into a creamy lip over time. There's no hint of whisky in the aroma, just the faint smell of alcohol, which may well mean nothing but I have found it to be true that big smells lead to big flavours.What you get is a smooth, very drinkable, off-amber beer that tastes a little of treacle and banana, it was only when I lapped at the frothing foam that I got the burn in the back of the throat that I get from whisky. This is a deeply satisfying, comforting and warming ale that tastes like it should be a 4% but is, in fact, a hefty 7%.

This is both a beer to be taken seriously and to be good humoured with because it tastes a million times more playful than the regal bottle may suggest but at 7% it is not to be taken for granted. This is a very impressive beer, yet another in a long list that have come from North of the border. Och aye the noo, chaps, och aye the noo.

Food suggestion: Freshly made croissants with big, rich, globs of butter running down it. Even though it's Scottish and they're not particularly renowned for it, this beer feels refined and therefore suits something a bit... Daintier.

Drink this if you like: Innis & Gunn whisky cask is a good shout but this better resembles Well's Banana Bread beer.