Bells Batch 6000 Ale

Formerly brewed at Bells Brewery
Style: Barley Wine
Kalamazoo, Michigan USA

Bottle. Pours a terrific dark red color with a pinkish white fizzy head. Nose is yeasty and has a sour cherry scent to it. Lots of heavy sediment flows through a nice thick beer. Taste is doughy and yeasty with lots of berry flavors. Some hints of cherrys and a great full mouthfeel.

12oz bottle aged a little over 4 years in a cool dark cellar. Poured into a big brandy snifter, this is a pretty barleywine. The color is a murky purplish brown with a head of swirling white creamy bubbles. The aroma is really quite rich. I see earlier ratings that describe grapefruit hoppines. That isn’t here in the aged bottle. This is all caramel and chocolate. The aromas as well as the flavors are constantly swirling and changing. This is really a sexy beer. The alcohol is there, but it is just part of the luscious experience. Sexy, yet sophisticated.

12 oz bottle. Thanks Adrian. Deep brown with traces of tan froth. Nose of dark caramel, smoky plum and salty molasses. Very light carb with a silky body but you can feel the heat. Taste is chocolate caramel and candied grapefruit peel. Tails off with bittersweet chocolate and grass. Reminds me of German chocolate cake. I even detected some coconut.

Pours a syrupy brown but settles like a thick murky brown sludge, getting close to black with some lighter yeasty crumbs floating around in suspended animation. Head about a finger high, tannish and thickly foamed but dissolves fairly quickly to a thin ring, lace is in sticky whisped strings and sparitc spotting. Smell is hugely malted with caramel wafting from the glass with a deep, deep dark pineyness of hops that lays in the back lusciously tormenting you to sniff deeper which brings out notes of ripe raisin and dark citrus, alcohol smokes through after each sip into the nose and right into your head. Taste is a whole lotta caramel malt, large and in your face, characterized in thickness with a complexing hop profile that really shines. The hops begin to start dancing almost as soon as it hits your tongue, those malts are just laying the groundwork here and keeping a great balance. Hops are somewhat abrasive, raw, and earthy, but in a good way, bitterness is steeped in pine, quite deep and dark, resiny, grapefruity deep soured and lingering. The hops pull up and take a seat on your tongue and hang there for the length of a road trip. Quite amazing! Feel is pretty smooth and heavy, full and lush, a bit pushy even, with a great finish of hoppy piney bittering that lingers on and on and on. An exceptional barleywine! Goes down surprisingly easy and the alcohol hardly makes its presense felt til much later. Some may not like the hops as much and believe them to be over barring, then age away, but as is; fresh, this stuff is wonderful!

Dark, speckled auburn color underneath a frothy brown head. Light alcohol at the front of the nose, strong citrusy/piney hops and just a touch of brown sugar and malt. Huge hops in the front, piney and slightly resiney. Touch of coffee, big alcohol burn and a thick, slightly sweet malt presence. Almost a bit of vanilla towards the end, but finishes quite bitter with hints of pine. A big, big beer, but not complex enough. The hops dominate with the malt dying very quickly. Okay, certainly not great, but a drastic step up from batch 5000.

Bottle from a trade with TAR (thanks Jeff!) Very deep ruby brown color, thinner tan head that lasted for the most part. Awesome aroma, fat chewy malts, molasses, caramel, dates, and prunes. Nice flavor, not as bold but holds up very well. Full bodied, alcohol is present but I’d imagine it was much hotter when it was brewed a few years ago. Great stuff.

Deep amber-brown. Cloudy w/ creamy, swirling mocha head. Rich, sweet aroma of cafe au lait, dark fruit, raisins, caramel & toffee. Soft, full body. Robust, slightly roasty flavour of licorice, chocolate & fruit. Mild, dry alcohol & pine in the finish. Nicely balanced.

12 oz bottle sampled thanks to drewbeerme. Damn. Why is this made only once. At a few years now, this is an amazing beer. Pours a dark brown with some red hints and no head. The aroma is beautiful raisins, plums, red fruit, chocolate, brown sugar, so complex. A full mouthfeel that’s creamy smooth with more raisins, plums, dark fruit, chocolate, oak, licorice, alcohol, this is too complex for my tastebuds to discern it all. Finishes with a little alcohol and bitterness. Amazing.