Arcadia Loch Down Scotch Ale

Brewed by Arcadia Brewing Company
Style: Scotch Ale
Battle Creek, Michigan USA

Serve in Thistle

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Bottle- Pours a deep mahogany color with a small head and no real lacing. Aroma of roasted malt, dark fruit with some chocolate and caramel and hint of spice. Can sort sense the 8% ABV. Taste follows the the aroma with roasted malt and dark fruit, followed with a blend of chocolate and caramel sweetness and bit of spice. Mild bitterness and a slightly sticky finish. Medium body, with a smooth and creamy texture and a subtle feel of the alcohol. Nice scotch ale, quite good for the style without being overpowering.

12 ounce bottle into tulip glass, bottled on 11/1/2011. Pours cloudy very dark reddish brown color with a fairly dense 1-2 finger light khaki head with good retention, that reduces to a thin cap that lingers. Some nice spotty lacing clings to the glass. Aromas of big raisin, prune, toast, molasses, caramel, earth, cocoa, and light herbal. Pretty nice aromas with good strength and complexity. Taste of prune, raisin, cocoa, earth, molasses, caramel, toast, slight smoke, tobacco, and herbal. Lingering notes of dark fruit, molasses, toast, tobacco, caramel, cocoa, and herbal on the finish for a good bit. Pretty good flavor balance and complexity; but has some unpleasantly cloying characteristics after the finish. Medium carbonation and medium-full body; with a nice creamy and slightly slick mouthfeel. Alcohol is well hidden with only a warming after the finish. Overall this is an ok scotch ale. If it didn’t have the cloying flavors on the finish it would have scored higher. Certainly wasn’t too difficult to finish.

Bottle. Pours a dark brown with off-white head. Caramel, nutty, malty aromas. Caramel, toffee, nutty flavors.

This one was the last of my build a 6er from Binnys. It was garnet colored as advertised, maybe even a little darker. No head, just a little lingering lacing. The malt was caramel and toffee all the way, with just enough raw herbal hop to balance. The alcohol level was hidden well, and it went down easily. Easy to drink too much of this.

Very nutty, with lots of caramel, toffee and roasted flavors. Hints of dough. Stiff bit clean alcohols in both aroma and taste.

Bottle. I'm learning to like scotch ales. I don't smell anything other than some caramel. The head went poof fast. Hazy dark red brown color. I haven't had enough to compare this to other scotch ales but it's nice. ---Rated via Beer Buddy for iPhone

Poured from a 12 ounce bottle into a miniature snifter. Appearance is a dark copper with an appropriate sized khaki colored head of foam. Aroma is sweet, caramel, some light chocolate, and alcohol. Taste is more on the earthy sweet side of things with an alcohol presence that is noticeable at first, but as the beer warms, that blends into everything else and just kind of disappears.

Dark mahogany pour with a thin tan head. Very sweet and deeply roasted malty aroma with hints of fruit and smoke. Malty sweetness dominates the flavors, a scotch like profile, but leaves me wanting more of something. Mouthfeel a bit thin and finish very much in need of a hoppy finish. Not very well balanced. Decent tasting beer, but missing some key scotch flavors.

An interesting brew. I like hte caramel malt, clove / spice and earth tones. The finish is dark fruit and toffee.

Bottle. Pours dark brown with generous but short lived head. Aroma is alluring and earthy, almost meaty. Taste and body come slightly short of its potential: slightly thin with fizzy carbonation and a very straightforward taste. I keep waiting for the flavor to unfold into some hidden sweet or sour below all that peat but it isn’t forthcoming. Ends up tasting somewhat like a weaker Belgian dunkel. I’d like to sample this beer on tap, perhaps nitro, and see if it doesn’t settle more comfortably into its style.