Bell's Batchin' Tasting

Hello Everyone,

Thought I'd share the results of an impromptu tasting of Bell's Batch 3,000 through 10,000, along with a 20 year old bottle of Third Coast Old Ale. Before tonight, the oldest Batch beer that I'd had was 6000 and although I thought it was interesting, I didn't think it was great.

First up, the kill shot:



Beers were drank from oldest batch->newest, then finishing with the old TCoA.

B3000: Best feature on this was the 2.99 price tag on the cap. Bottle was one of those serendipitous off-the-beaten path store discoveries that bierenutz made some time back. Style was American Strong Ale, and I'm not sure of brew date (I think it was later 90's). Smell was rich and sweet like an old English barleywine. Taste was a letdown after the great nose - oxidized, muddled, no carb, slick.

B4000: B4k through 7k were provided by BenC. The 4k was a store score, other three were acquired from a trade partner that had cellared them together since purchase. Looking this one up on RB, style was listed as ASA with characteristics of an English Mild (?), bottled in Feb 2000. Very light color, not a lot to the nose. Taste was good - sweet, very light and a little thin in the body .. the flavormade the descrioption of a 'double English mild' make a little more sense.

B5000: This was the top beer for me. RB description listed it as a smoked ASA, Jan 2002 release. Smoked American strong ale ... hadn't ever come across one of those before. Cracked it open and poured - had good carbonation, left decent lacing on the glass. The smoked malts were really prominent in the nose. Smoked beers normally aren't my thing, so I was bracing myself for a letdown. Man, was I wrong - the smoked malts had such a wonderful interplay with the sweetness of this aged strong beer. After a couple rinses of my glass I was still smelling the smokiness of that beer, reminiscing fondly of it's fantastic taste and wishing I had just a little bit more.

B6000: An American barleywine, bottled in Oct 2003. I opened up a couple of these at a tasting back in December of '10, and it was a mixed reaction from that crowd - some thought it was overoxidized and near undrinkable, some thought it was very interesting and delicious. My first impression was somewhere in between those two extremes. This time around I was more on the 'it is damn tasty' side of things. I know memory is imperfect, butt I recalled a lot of similarities between the B6000 and a 2003 Bigfoot I had last week (with taste advantage belonging to the Bigfoot). Didn't get any residual hop flavors but rich sweet caramel and toffee notes were prevalent. This was my number two beer for the night.

B7000: IMO, if you got this one stashed, get to drinking it. It absolutely isn't getting better based on the last 3 times I've had it over the past year. Bottled in Sept 2005, it is listed as an American Double/Imperial Stout. Smell seemed off, taste was definitely off. Something metallic in the finish. Least pleasant beer of the night. Note to cellarerers: this is an example that shows, just because it's a 12% beer you can't just keep it indefinitely. Drink those old beers yo!

B8000: Bottled July 2007, it is listed on here as a Witbeer, on RB as a Belgian Strong Ale. I'd have to lean towards the latter description - a 9% witbeer sounds a bit extreme. This was the big surprise for me tonight. It wasn't the best smelling, or best tasting, but I was going into this thinking it was going to be just a crappy old witbeer. It was actually pretty pleasant smelling and tasting, mouthfeel was very full, had a light spiciness that was complimented by (or masked?) some oxidation.

B9000: Bottled January 2010. American strong ale, brewed with brewers licorice. When this was fresh I thought it was too rich, and that the licorice flavor was overpowering. I personally feel it has developed very nicely so far, and I think it's going to continue to develop in a positive direction for some time. I realize that this is a somewhat polarizing beer (some people absolutely hate it), but I enjoyed this beer a lot.

B10000: Bottled ~Oct 2010. American Strong Ale (they call it a 'strong brown ale (?)'. Meh. I don't think this tastes a whole lot different than it did when it was first released. Still kind of muddled.

Third Coast Old Ale: Bottled Jan 1992, acquired in a trade with a great trader in Indiana. No batch number, just a sticker on the cap with date info (which I trust; this I believe came from a brewer's stash from Bell's). This was an interesting beer to try. It wasn't awesome tasting, but it was super interesting. Just a ton of things going on flavor-wise. Oxidation was a strong component, but it was something else tasting the underlying sweet, almost port-like notes that only 20 years of aging can develop.

Thank you very much BenC and bierenutz for ponying up the Bell's batch beers, and splax23 for letting us do this at your pad. It was a lot of fun to taste such a wide swathe of Bell's history tonight with you all (and erikkoppin!).