McNeills Scotch Ale

Brewed by McNeills Brewery
Style: Scotch Ale
Brattleboro, Vermont USA

Low off-white head covers a rubyish brown hue. Nice aroma with lots of malt providing toffee and butterscotch flavor. Spicy kick. Coffee notes. Earthy and orangey hops feel weird on the tongue. Salty finish is highly roasty. It’s not really bitter, just out of place, feeling almost chalky. Weird spicy feel reminiscent of basil (in a scotch ale?). Medium bodied, average carbonation. Weird scotch ale... I don’t dig it.

Pours a dark mahogany with a thin ring of light tan head. Aroma has a nice sweet, toasty caramel maltiness with a touch of peat. Full malty body has a good sweet caramel flavor with a sticky, semi-dry finish. A pleasant Scotch ale.

Dark chocolate tobacco failing to shrug off the muscular earthy hops, which soon dominate the flavor spectrum...Fruity yeast interacts with the now green hops but gets discouraged at the lack of help from the malt and thus nearly abandons ship...More malts would be needed to balance off these salient hops and make this an offering to McNeill’s usual standards of quality..3.5/5.

Of course, some bottles of this aren’t in top shape, and diacetyl is prominent, pushing back the hops (good!) yet veiling the fruity malts too much to my tastes. 3/5

Growler from the brewery. Deep dark brown-amber beer. Thin tan head. Aroma is lightly sweet and a bit malty. There is a lightly earthy hoppiness as well. Sweet and malty. It’s a bit herbal and toffeeish. It’s decent though, and I’m glad to see that they’ve cleaned up their yeast issues. Sweet and lightly caramelly.

Jan 04: 22 oz bottle. Very dark reddish brown, heavily sedimented, murky. Small, creamy, lasting head. Very sweet, toffee/caramel nose, bit orangey. Super-soft, pillowy, almost milk-shake mouthfeel; I loved it, others may find it cloying. Very sweet, smoky orange-caramel front, oaky notes in the center, finish somewhat excessively bitter for style. Very good overall, certainly no disappointment from this master brewer, if far from his best. 8/3/8/4 16 3.9

November 2005: 22 oz bottle shared with ClarkVV. Seems too sweet and rather cardboardy and dry at the finish, lots of toffee and pecans...still good, but just not quite up to what it was a couple of years ago.

Original Rating (22-Sep-04, 8-3-6-3-10=3.0): Hops, sweet malt, touches of smoke, chalky, roasty aroma. Some fruit emerges in the aroma as it warms. Clear reddish-brown with thin cover of off-white head. Assertively roasty bitterness. Flavour is hop dominated. Chalky flavour takes away from enjoyment. Body a bit on the thin side. Where’s the malt??? Bottle sampled with beerbuzzmontreal, MartinT and Rastacouere.
Re-Rate (24-Apr-05, 6-4-4-2-9=2.5): Chocolate covered toffees with a fair fruitiness and strong butterscotch character that seems to work for this one. Opaque brown with thin but lasting cover of tan head that leaves some very fine traces down the sides of the glass. Sweet malts are overcome by mineral, metallic and green pea flavours. Medium body is rather slick with very low carbonation. Bottle sampled with MartinT, muzzlehatch, Olivier_MTL, Rastacouere and Yowie.

Tap @ Blind Tiger. Poured a hazy deep brown color with an off-white head. Very light smoke pokes out of sweet toffee malt. Some earthy notes as well. Semi-sweet flavor with dry toasted malt. Somewhat earthy with a semi-sweet finish. Mild bitterness with a light-medium body. Over all the aroma and flavor were on the light side.

Unfiltered yet bottle conditioned 2005. Good cocoa aroma as well as peat. Great head with soap bubbles and lace. Nice dark colour. A medium mouthfeel and body. Malty and caramel, not that much peat in there,