Scotch
Barrio Brewing Company

This was poured into a nonic pint glass. The appearance was a semi-dark brown almost black in color with a finger’s worth of white foamy head that dissipated at a decent pace. Mild lacing sticks to the glass. The aroma had sly smoke, some peat, crisp dried herbal qualities, some caramel malt and then some cherry sweetness. The flavor blended all of those previously mentioned aromas together somewhat sweetly. Mild touch of the smoke coming back to blend with the cherries in the aftertaste. Light peaty/smoky finish. On the palate, this one sat about a light to medium on the body with a fair sessionability about it. Moderate carbonation. ABV feels appropriate. Nice smoothness all around. Overall, nicely done Scotch ale that I could have again.

 

Arrives from the tap with a frothy, initially one-finger thick, lightly amber tinged, tan colored head that leaves some light lacing on the sides of my glass. The beer is a concentrated red / amber color that shows a brilliantly clear, bright red hue with gold highlights when held up to the window. The aroma smells of sweet caramelized malt up front and finishes with a hint of an herbal hop bit even, though this last is quite subtle. There is a soft nuttiness to the malt here and it is accentuated by a nice, whole grain toasty malt character.

The beer has a fair amount of malt sweetness to it and is quit chewy with a nice heft to it. The finish has a solid toasted grain / touches of toasted nut character to it and there is just a touch of herbal hop bitterness as well as a touch of carbonic bite. The maltiness plays the leading role here with notes that are nicely caramelized, without being overly sweet, richly toasted, somewhat nutty, nicely grainy, toothsome, biscuit like and even whole grain cracker like in the finish. There is a supporting fruitiness to this beer that isn’t really distinctly of any one fruit, but sort of has an indistinct berry like character to it and perhaps some raisin-like notes to it. There is a slight menthol character to the herbal hop notes in the finish; the hop character, though perhaps a touch high for the “style” really plays quite well with the rich malt character that forms the core of this beer.

This is nice and clean; it has a nice fruitiness to it and even some noticeable, though quite soft, hoppiness to it that add some interesting dimensions to this beer. For a beer style that I usually find bland and boring, I am really digging this beer right now. I am not sure how strong this is, but it drinks more like a BJCP version of a stronger version of a Scottish ale, rather than Scotch, but it is hitting the spot quite well right now and I could easily order a few pints of this over an evening. Well, confirming the alcohol, this is about 7% (which is respectable if not on the low side for a Scotch), it doesn’t quite drink as rich as my favorite type of Scotch ale, but that doesn’t detract from how enjoyable this beer is. The fact that it is fairly quaffable certainly helps with this.