Silver City Fat Scotch Style Ale

Brewed by Silver City Brewing Company
Style: Scotch Ale
Silverdale, Washington USA

Tap @ Brewery: Chewy bourbon color, no head or lacing. Fruit and fig with nutmeg in the nose, some brown sugar and some maple syrup with lots of other malliard’s friends. Not a lot more going on, but that’s enough for me with a scotch ale.

Bomber. Pours translucent dark brown with a thin off-white head. Medium to full body. Chewy sweet taste of apples, toffee, figs and brown-sugar coated macadamia nuts. Sweet, very lightly bitter, lighty smoky and lightly alcoholic finish. If you have a sweet tooth, this is your beer.

purchased at central market in poulsbo, washington. pours a dark brown with a red tint, small beige head that dissipates quickly, good lacing. smell is very faint, i can hardly smell anything at all. taste is nice, malt, butterscotch, sweet, maple, caramel, vanilla, mouth-feel is thick. this is not as good as i was hoping after seeing the score and reading some of the ratings... taste is good but fails on aroma and just an average appearance and palate.

This is a good Scotch. It has everything that a good scotch should have. Pours nice, good thick head that lasts. Dark, amberish brown color. cereal, roasty, caramel, and slight smoke notes. The taste is sweet malts, but not to the point of being syrupy. Very good mouthfeel, thick. It invites you to sip and enjoy.

Draught @ Collin’s Pub: Muddy in color, like ruby hued chocolate milk.   Head is minor, beige, fizzy, spotty lacing, a few strong streams of lacing.   Big peaty malt nose, seems sweet, minor campfire and ash.   A little bandaid on the tongue, otherwise big juicy maltiness, good dose of sweetness, minor raisin and other associated dark pitted fruit.   Smells great, has that bit of bandaid up front, but finishes strong.   Put this sucker on Oak for a while and blamo!   Body and mouthfeel are moderate to full.   Some appleskin emerges on the finish.   Sorta weird, like it has Stout attributes for a Scottish Ale.   Tiz quite good.

32 oz. ceramic swing top bottle pours a mahogany fluid with a tan head. Smokey, sweet malt smell. Nice lacing. Sticky sweet smoked malt flavor with molasses and alderwood smoked tasting malts. Medium/heavy bodied with a very smooth mouthfeel. The smoked flavors here went well with a cigar on Superbowl Sunday 2005.

Purchased at Bottleworks April 2007, Sampled November 2007
Pours with a frothy, fairly large bubbled, initially two-finger thick, amber tinged, tan colored head that sits atop a deep, amber / plum colored beer that shows a brilliantly clear, concentrated cranberry color when held up to the light. The aroma is quite sweet with notes of concentrated fruit, brandy, caramelized raisins, a touch of plums, and even a touch of cherry. Other malt notes also abound; hints of roast character (which get wrapped up in the caramelized aromatics), nutty malt notes, toffee, toasted bread crust, a touch of salty malt character and a touch of smokiness; this really has a nice satisfyingly rich malt character to it.

Definitely sweet tasting, which certainly accentuates a certain fruitiness. Fruit flavors of raisins, hints of cherries, a touch of prunes and in combination with some alcohol, flavors of brandy. This has a fullness to it that allows the beer to cling to the palate, leaving a deeply caramelized malt sugar layer as well as a nice toasty malt character lingering on in the mouth after the beer has passed down my throat. A touch of salt, a hint of smokiness and just a wisp of a roasted grain note are found in the finish. As the beer warms a bit the salty, smoky note becomes a bit more pronounced (enough so that I actually think they used some peat smoked malt in this brew), but I definitely like how subtle it is. It helps to pick up the malt complexity of this brew.

Somehow the beer is a little too sweet, not by much, but enough that I think the sweetness is a bit too noticeable. This really accentuates a deep fruitiness to this brew though. I would prefer that the malt sweetness here was a bit more complex and caramelized. The aroma definitely strikes a nice balance between malt driven fruit notes as well as the drier, more complex malt components. Somehow this does not quite transport to the flavor though and this beer is just not quite complex enough in the flavor department. Still for all my complaints it is really quite tasty and certainly enjoyable.

Thanks to hopdog for supplying both this and the Fat Woody for a side by side tasting... Appears a semi-transparent, dark amber with a smal, off-white head that slowly fades out. Smell is of vanilla, caramel, toffee, raisins, and smoked peat. Taste is of the mentioned aromas with an herbal hop flavor peaking it’s head out in the midst of the caramel. Mouthfeel is medium bodied, slightly thin, with sweetness and citrusy bitterness clinging to the finish.