Bells Rye Stout

Brewed by Bells Brewery
Style: Stout
Kalamazoo, Michigan USA

Bottle. [Courtesy of Papsoe, another great session @ Papsoe] Average beige fizzy head that mostly diminished. Fair display of lacework. Black color. Aroma of roasted malt, distant fruit, chocolate, coffee, sweet malty notes with a hint of brown sugar. Medium bodied with an average carbonation. Moderated bitter flavor with good balancing sweetness. Lingering liquorish finish. 31-08-2007

(Bottle 35,5 cl) Courtesy of sliffy. Hazy, dark orangey brown with a small, beige head. Aroma of roasted malt and licorice. Medium body, sweetish, roasted malt notes with a lightly burned edge. The finish is dry. 310807

12 fl oz bottle. Pours murky dark brown with a light brown head. Roasted malty aroma with a mild herbal twist. Rye flavour with some herbal noted bitterness, dry malty. Nice.

Date: 03/10/2006
Mode: Bottle
Source: Trade

black with ruby edges, thin tan head, touch of lace, roasted oatmeal aroma, creamy body, light roasted flavor, very low bitterness, a nice dry and very creamy stout, great drinking but not a lot of character

Aroma: 5/10; Appearance: 6/10; Flavor: 6/10; Palate: 8/10; Overall: 11/20
Rating: 2.9/5.0
Drinkability: 8/10
Score: *4

Cloudy dark chestnut color; the head disappears quickly. Like the American yeast aroma. More persistent, a milky aroma of roasted malt. Medium to light body, with a quite good mix of sweet caramel and some roasted malt. Not my liking, but not bad.

Bottled on 2-9-06, batch 7235. Notes from a 1-9-07 rating. Big coffee taste and a spicy rye finish. Very creamy mouthfeel but a fairly light body. Very complex, yet very good.

Pour is appropriately black. Very little head, but still attractive. The aroma is slightly roasty with a good amount of smooth chocolate. The flavor has just a touch of spiciness that I thought wasn’t normal for a stout. However the rye is masked and I doubt I would have noticed if I didn’t know what I was looking for. still a very good stout.

I love rye beer, but I couldn’t find much special about this stout. It was very smooth, a bit watery, but not tremendously flavorful. The unique malty quality that rye frequently imparts to beers brewed with it was not detectable to me within this beer. Not much to object to, but nothing to get excited about either. My bottle was dated "7235," which I’m guessing means that it is a well-mellowed bottle. Appearance was dark and beer was somewhat un-carbonated, unlike the Bell’s Kalamazoo Stout and Java Stout. Aroma and flavor were very minimal and not very roasty at all, again unlike its other Bell’s stout stablemates. I felt a bit let-down by the lack of flavor in this beer; much the same way I felt the last time I had a Guinness. Mouthfeel was a bit watery. Not a bad beer, but nothing to get excited about.