Subsidiaries
7.6/10
—
Appearance 6
Aroma 8
Flavor 8
Texture 6
Overall 8.5
Cloudy brown. Olive and raisiny aroma. Plummy flavor, balanced dubbel. Really outstanding dark fruit malt flavors. Looking over the specs of this beer, I'm shocked at the strength, but I can see it as a quad at that strength despite my interpetation as a dubbel - the abv was extraordinarily masked.
Tried
from Can
on 05 Jan 2004
at 11:52
8.2/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 10
Flavor 8
Texture 6
Overall 8
2005 Bottle (Sampled on 24 Jan 2010) Additions: Crisp aroma of honey, oak and pitted fruits, nice. Medium to partially Full-bodied; Very mellow fruit, oak, vanilla and alcohol in this one - a very mild beer that definitely lost a lot with the age. Good, but I definitely prefer this after a year or so aged - this is a bit too muted for my tastes! Very nice hazy copper colour with a very thin tan head. Aroma of raisins, caramel, pineapple, peaches, caster sugar and a fruity sweetness. Full-bodied; Very sweet initial taste with fruit and sugar flavours as well as a spicey finish. Aftertaste has some malt bitterness, but is left sweet. Overall, a very nice barleywine- 1+ year on this bottle and the complexity and flavours are brilliant. Alcohol is hardly noticeable to boot! I sampled this twelve ounce bottle purchased from Merchant’s in Dearborn, Michigan on 24-December-2003.
Tried
from Bottle
on 31 Dec 2003
at 18:30
7.9/10
—
Appearance 10
Aroma 9
Flavor 8
Texture 4
Overall 7.5
Slightly hazy orange coloured body-very effervescent with a larger dense/floral off-white head. Aroma of grapefruit high a.a. hops. Mild musty aroma as well. Medium-bodied; Bittering hop flavour with citrus and floral qualities most noticed. Aftertaste clean and crisp-fairly drying, but not overpowering. An odd bitterness resides in the palate-not from hops, but from metal or something offensive. Overall, very nice to try-a well made beer with good qualities. I got this twelve ounce bottle in a six-pack from Merchant's in Dearborn, Michigan and sampled it on 24-December-2003.
Tried
from Bottle
on 31 Dec 2003
at 18:26
7.8/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 8
Flavor 8
Texture 6
Overall 8
Slightly hazy golden colour with a frothy white head having TONS of suspended particles. Light aroma of citrusey and floral hops-pretty standard for good-quality APA's. Light to Medium-bodied; Nice spicey hoppiness well balanced with malt. Aftertaste left clean, hardly any hop bitterness. Overall, an APA that can be drunk any day of the year-it's well balanced and very nice for the style! Nothing majorly wrong with this one! I got this twelve ounce bottle purchased by my mom from Merchant's in Dearborn, Michigan and sampled it on 21-December-2003.
Tried
from Can
on 22 Dec 2003
at 02:18
9/10
—
Appearance 10
Aroma 8
Flavor 9
Texture 10
Overall 9
Draft; Map Room, Chicago. Ah, Batch #6000 for my beer #200. I like the symmetry. I like the beer. It's a devil in a glass, and it's barely aged yet. Big alcohol smack in barley wine fashion. Smoky, thick, and with a big whisky nose. And plenty hops, too.
Tried
from Draft
on 15 Dec 2003
at 11:10
7.6/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 7
Flavor 7
Texture 8
Overall 8.5
Dec 15, ’03: Served from a beer engine at the Map Room, and at English Ale temperature. Good thin yet persistent head. The hand pull yielded a beer with no bubbles, yet a firm mouthfeel. The IPA hops were actually subdued, nicely balanced between floral and bitter. Somehow I picked up a note of cherries, too. Color is lighter than the usual American IPA, closer to a Vienna or even a Pilsner. I had hoped to get a better impression of Bells than I did at their Eccentric Cafe taproom, and I was right.
Bottled, May 22, ’05. A slightly different experience from a chilled bottle, and no less fascinating. Unfiltered like the other bottled Bell’s, with quite a lot of bits floating around, that don’t detract in the least from the enjoyment. I may have waited a bit too long to open this bottle I got in November, as the floral hops I noted on draft are a little rougher, more piney and northwestern. But just another facet of a fascinating and complex beer.
Bottled, May 22, ’05. A slightly different experience from a chilled bottle, and no less fascinating. Unfiltered like the other bottled Bell’s, with quite a lot of bits floating around, that don’t detract in the least from the enjoyment. I may have waited a bit too long to open this bottle I got in November, as the floral hops I noted on draft are a little rougher, more piney and northwestern. But just another facet of a fascinating and complex beer.
Tried
from Can
on 15 Dec 2003
at 09:12
9/10
—
Appearance 10
Aroma 8
Flavor 9
Texture 10
Overall 9
2003 draught. Well this weekend certainly made me rethink my ratings. A bells beer to beat batch 6000?? Come on. But it did. Put it to shame. This was awesome. Pure dark brown, with some deep orange tones. Lacing, and a small head that lingered. Smells of vinegar, rich malt, alcohol, raspberries?? definitely some piney hops and some oak. Begins with a big bittersweet malt flavor with the malt and hops being wedded together well. Huge amount of hops comes through in the middle, gets quite grapefruity. The finish was my favorite. Got extremely complex. Red fruits, caramel malt, alcohol soaked in oak, maple, brown sugar, cinnamon and finally a little dose of carbonation. Very full bodied. It’s all there. This one raises the ante on batch 6000. 2003 bottle aged 6 months. Wow, this is definitely as good as I remember. Huge extra full body still. Beer has not calmed down much, huge hops bitterness, stingingly large malt flavor. Needs a long nap still. Oh and the aroma is wonderfully complex with notes of maple, dark fruits, cinnamon, chocolate, alcohol and hops resin, but not quite as full as I would like.2003 bottle aged almost 18 months The vegetables or mint or whatever the leafy, green, herbal-like stuff they brew this with is really starting to show. Still an awesome pour, slight oxidation beginning to show. I think it could be cumin seeds. About 1,000 different things going on in this beer. Full body, very low carbonation, but not syrupy or unbalanced.
1997 bottle consumed 3/19/05 The spice really drives this beer now, with the body being quite oxidized and some thinning as a result. Still, the wonderful malting on this can be felt, even at this age. With much of the sediment out of solution, you can really see the dark raspberry/brown color to the body. Small, beige fizzy head. No alcohol apparency, some sugariness on the finish and plenty of complexity still exists. I find eccentric ale to be one of the most difficult beers to describe. Score reflects sort of a culmination/combination of how I feel about this beer as a whole, taking in to account the different experiences I have had with it.
1997 bottle consumed 3/19/05 The spice really drives this beer now, with the body being quite oxidized and some thinning as a result. Still, the wonderful malting on this can be felt, even at this age. With much of the sediment out of solution, you can really see the dark raspberry/brown color to the body. Small, beige fizzy head. No alcohol apparency, some sugariness on the finish and plenty of complexity still exists. I find eccentric ale to be one of the most difficult beers to describe. Score reflects sort of a culmination/combination of how I feel about this beer as a whole, taking in to account the different experiences I have had with it.
Tried
from Bottle
on 13 Dec 2003
at 11:36
7.2/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 6
Flavor 7
Texture 8
Overall 8
On tap in the old brewery room next to the eccentric cafe on Eccentric Day (night)2003. Pours a nice shiny pale green/yellow. Bubbly and a decent amount of white head. Smells slightly sour, mostly hoppy and definitely some tart apples. Flavor immediately is moderately sweet and has some green apples mixed in but then finishes very dry and lightly astringent. Apples are not overpowering, and while the beer has only a light body and little malt (sweetness comes from the fructose), it is quite decent for a fruit beer. Seems like their pale ale recipe mixed with the apples. Magnificent for the style.
Tried
from Draft
on 13 Dec 2003
at 11:29
8.5/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 9
Flavor 8
Texture 10
Overall 8
Thick dark brown head, very lacey; dark brown beer with ruby shine, clear. Beautiful nose, starting with grapes/raisins, then American hops taking over. The smell is that of really fresh hops, as like opening a bale. At the end vague impression of cream chocolate. Vinous taste, grapey again, bit of wood. Then of course hopbitterness, with an outspoken lemony character, as in lemon-sherbet. Retronasal chocolate returns, more as bitter one. Very well-bodied; syrupy, slippery aftertaste but not cloying. The hoppy bitterness is immediate. Then it glides towards the chocolate. It takes several sips before the hopbitterness is permanent. I feel guilty about this. The person who gave me this, and he ought to know, recommended to wait a year with this. I couldn't sit out a full month. And it was so good already. Superb, complex beer. Thanks, John.
Tried
from Can
on 07 Dec 2003
at 03:31
5.5/10
—
Appearance 6
Aroma 4
Flavor 5
Texture 8
Overall 6
Aroma of toast, not in a good way. Cloudy. Flavor is also of toast. This beer is very dry.
Tried
on 07 Dec 2003
at 00:18