Bells Batch 7000 Ale

Formerly brewed at Bells Brewery
Style: Imperial Stout
Kalamazoo, Michigan USA

(Bottle via trade with <A HREF=http://www.ratebeer.com/ViewUser.asp?UserID=7 target=blank>BBB63, thanks Mike!, cellared for 1 yr. after trade) This one delivers!...Pours very, very dark mahogany brown, appears opaque. Thin plum-tinted head turns tan and recedes to a very thin but persistent layer. Rich sweet aroma of coffee, chocolate and dark fruits. Mouthfeel very smooth, surprisingly more creamy than oily, lightly fizzy. Thin fine weepy lacing. Taste is quite awesome and complex - rich molasses, char, coffee, chocolate and grape. A great beer. Finishes with some chocolate and coffee bitterness. So many beers seem to have great aromas that just don’t carry through into taste - not the case with this one!

Coffee and chocolate aroma, with some vanilla and cream. Pours thick black, dark, seems like little carbonation like used motor oil with a thin tan head. Intense dark malt and roasted barley flavor, big flavor, coffee, vanilla, chocolate, burnt sugars, intense yet drinkable very complex. Feels oily and thick (awesome!). mmm, so tasty. This is a great beer! Someone gave me this bottle, but i forget who! Thanks to you, you know who you are.

Bottle courtesy Slob. Pour was deep dark black with a chocolate brown colored head, slow developing, thinning to a brownish ring around the glass, leaving behind quite nice splotchy lacing for a beer of this strength. The aroma was tons of piney hops, chocolate, sticky maple, dark fruits. The flavor was sticky maple, pine hops (strong), citrus hops, roasted malts, chocolate, brandy, cherries, assorted dark fruits. A darned bitter finish. The mouthfeel was sticky but not really that thick for the style and reported ABV, somewhat grainy thin in some ways. Odd. A nice Impy Stout, but I’ve had better. The flavors, while complex, didn’t blend together to win me over. Thanks, Bert, for this great and generous opportunity. This was rather enjoyable even if not a stand-out like last night’s Batch 6000 that I drooled into. Seems like others liked this way more than I anyway.

Bouteille de 12 oz, par HogTownHarry. Brune très foncée, mice collet beige. Arome de café expresso avec un peu de malte caramelisé. Bon goût de café mocha, avec un soupson de caramel anglais, légèrement amère.

What evil pours from this bottle, dense as unrefined petroleum and dark as the deepest reaches of space. Black is not a fitting color descriptor. Thick is an insult. A true Russian Style Imperial stout, definitive and turbulent. Another world class stout from Bells? You bet. Larry Bell is a genius. Thin, deep tan head rises from the depths and sinks slowly back underneath. Oily sheen glistens under all too bright lamplight. Lacing forms from sloshing first sips, dense and dark and sticky. The aroma is as dense as the body. Roasted malt that seems like it was rescued from a towering conflagration ignites the senses. The malt is smoky, vinous, rich and exacting in its drive forward. Chocolate follows, bitter and succulent. Coffee is delicate and fully roasty, and a full black cup dumped in doesn’t even begin to stand up to the onslaught of roasted grains. Hops are brisk and citric and floral, copious. Dark fruits such as prunes, plums and black cherries squeeze into the melee. Molasses, brown sugar, anise and alcohol are noted. Juniper berry nuances provide a swift kick on the back side of every inhalation. Nosing this beer takes me far away, I feel lost in the Siberian night, cold and ready to bring my blood to the boiling point with a sip so anticipated I can’t wait any longer. Rewarding is the taste, voluminous in flavor and complexity. Heavy bitterness shreds through like a diamond encrusted drill bit. Sweetness extinguishes the heat that so quickly set my tongue afire. Brash chocolate notes clash wildly with raw anise. This beer is so unbalanced it’s ludicrous. I love it. It’s a bitter dessert espresso with Godiva liqueur and plums. The fruity notes are nearly lost among the heady malts and blasts of roast. The mouthfeel is exceedingly full, bittersweet and amply carbonated. With every sip my mouth is punished, a rare case study develops; with each ounce passing, the desire for more increases twofold. The finish is glamorous and punishing at once. Heavy bitterness lingers for what seems an eternity. What would seem at first like a challenging quaff is one of the most rewarding beer experiences I’ve ever had. Unbelievable.

Rating three hundy. Opaque black color that sits below a thin, even expanse of dark tan head. Swirling the liquid around in the glass, the beer’s heft is apparent. The aroma is primarily chocolate chip and alcohol, with some roasted smells stuggling to get through the fumes. The palate isn’t as thick as I anticipated, but I was anticipating something milkshake-like. The taste is the real feature here. At first, the alcohol takes over, but as the brew warms, some real deep dark roast flavors take over and provide a glowing roast finish.

Within the expansive realm of Imperial Stouts, the Bells Batch 7000 is the pinnacle of filling and fulfilling beers. It is a drink of titanic proportions, wobbling to and fro like a gluttonous, obese giant, packed with the smells and flavors of hearty, meaty foods. It is a meal of sustenance and vitality packed into an elegant , almost svelte bottle that belies a brew fit for the tireless lumberjack. Immediately after the pour finishes an enormous, mushroom cloud head blossoms in the glass. After it reaches its billowy zenith it settles back down into a pocked and rippled texture of an appearance strikingly like soft tofu. The body from which this spongiferous blanket sprouts is itself a mundane dark, clouded brown. The color is in fact exceptional because of its ho-hum hue. So many Imperial Stouts pour like a liquid black hole, making a colorless blob in the glass. The aromas from the drink do not disappoint. Initially it is creamy with a cornucopia of fresh root vegetables – carrots, potatoes, maybe even beets. There’s also a strange tint of acrylic paint in the smell, though I find it rather nice, and suitable in the concurrent aromatic milieu of open air market. A sample taste doesn’t waste time in broadening the comestible scope of the beer, rushing in with bucolic earth tones like clay, and spicing them up with a dash of cumin. I also taste white rice –something all too familiar to anybody with a large appetite and a small budget in Japan. Behind the white rice is a bit of rum and a spoonful of brown sugar. In a wider perspective, Bells Batch 7000 is very “steaky” with some meat and char to it (a good thing), sweetened by a generous portion of molasses flavor. The mouthfeel is very sudsy and bubbly, but also a bit chalky in a favorable disposition to the earthy qualities of the flavor. The aftertaste is the finest moment in a sip of this beer, cascading with flavors of a delicious, well grilled steak: steak again, charcoal, steak sauce and soy sauce. It is a savory, luxurious end to a fifteen course beer, and should leave even the heartiest trencherman patting his belly in satisfaction.

Bottle picked up in Minnesota by my pops about a year ago. Cellared in Minnesota. This is its 3 day in NC. It didnt last long! Pour is dark brown with a thin tannish head. Nose is interesting--smells a lot like an old ale--lots of molasses, brown sugar, sweet malts, and overall roastiness. A nice mix of smells, but a little off for an imperial stout. Flavor is much deeper and more honest to style with deep coffee and chocolate throughout. Mouthfeel is medium to thick with a nice bitter palate. This beer is a bit misleading with the nose, but really comes through when it counts. I’ve had this at a couple tastings (but i was too far back to notice the incredible flavor of this brew) and am very happy to try this with a sober mind and a ready palate. Thanks Hyerum Tyerum!!!!