As you can see, this fine ale exhibits a strange characteristic for imperial stouts: it has head.  This is certainly not a bad thing, just different.  It’s quite thick, but fades pretty quickly.

The smell is comprised of lots of malt, chocolate, coffee, and alcohol.  It’s really sweet, in both senses of the word.

The mouthfeel is full, with minimal carbonation bite.  Very thick, coating the tongue and mouth wonderfully.

The taste is multi-faceted.  There is a lot of sweetness up front, while there is plenty of bitterness as it moves back on the tongue.  There are all sorts of flavors you could associate with this.  Coffee, chocolate, and oats are all very prominent.  There is a noticeable hint of alcohol in the flavor, which is really enjoyable.

Overall, this is a stellar beer, and I’m glad I finally got to review it for the site.  While it’s not the greatest imperial stout ever, it’s a hell of a good one.

8.5/10

First off, let me tell you how I managed to come across this beer…  I first heard of it though a good friend of Beer and Comics, Laura Bell.  Yes, Laura, the son of Larry Bell.  The owner of Bell’s Brewing.  Laura has been a good friend of Ian’s and mine for some years now.  We were at a friends wedding when she dropped some knowledge on me about the availability of this beer and that she’d really like to see it reviewed.  I promised that if I were able to get my grubby paws on it, I would review it accurately.  Fast forward 1.5 months to today.  I received this beer as a gift for the completion of my grad school application from my friend Phantom at today’s hash.  I’ve been THRILLED with the possibility to have this for some time, and glad it finally happened.

The pour:  a bit cloudy, and somewhere between tan and amber.  Like a dark orange.  The head didn’t stick around long, and didn’t leave much lacing.

The smell:  This smells like IIPA’s should smell.  Hoppy.  There is a slight sweetness to it, but it’s overwhelmingly hoppy.  And AMAZING.  It is no secret that is what I like, and like to smell in a beer, and certainly Bell’s Oracle doesn’t disappoint.

The taste:  a medium body, with a well carbonated mouthfeel.  It’s very hoppy and bitter.  There’s a hint of malt at the front of the mouth, but it is overwhelmingly bitter.  I LOVE IT.  Fantabulous.

I’m really really happy with this.  I’ve been waiting for Bell’s to do this for some time now, as I LOVE IIPA’s.  If you can still find this out there, do it.

9/10

As for the beers, there wasn’t a whole lot that blew my mind there.  There was a very interesting sweet potato stout, which was a pretty light stout, with a hint of sweet potato in the aftertaste.  Sparkling ale was also on draft, which is a relatively decent American tripel.  Two hearted was there, and spectacular as always.  Most importantly, or disappointingly, so was eccentric ale.  Eccentric ale this year was very reminiscent of Young Bison‘s own Electric Mayhem, although a bit more robust.  Honestly, it could’ve used some bourbon or just some vanilla. It was an overly heavy scotch ale that just didn’t have much positive going for it, besides alcohol content.  Then again, you don’t go to eccentric day for the ale, you go for the absolute shit-show it becomes.  It’s certainly one hell of a party, complete with scantily clad women, scantily clad dudes, and scantily clad… others.  Larry Bell graced us as a newspaper pope.  I ran into some friends I hadn’t seen in some time as well, most notably Laura Bell, who is a wonderful human being.

Back to the beer… Nothing mind-blowing, but nothing bad.  They also had Rye Stout.  Eccentric ale get’s a 5.5/10

Brian says if this beer was a chord, it would be a Cmaj7. Tuned down a half step. So a Bmaj7. I guess.

There is an aroma of dark, roasted barley right away, and I detect the rye right away, but I’m a rye junky. Rye beer, rye bread, rye whiskey…

Brian smells a bit of coffee, which is probably from the chocolate rye malt that’s all over it. Its pleasant, and a very easy sip.

Its also worth noting that this beer poured with almost no head, and what little there was disappeared immediately.

Brian loves the way it coats your tounge, like a good stout should. He thinks the most impressive part of it is its utilization of a rye malt in a dark beer. He’s not in love with this beer. It could be a little stouter. And he’s not so big on the aftertaste. It kind of tastes like he just smoked a whole bunch of cigarettes.

I, on the other hand, am really impressed with it. It has a wonderful grainy-ness to it that I love. The malt is roasty, and has some sweetness in there too, but mostly roast and rye. Which I love.

We both rate this a

7/10

In honor of that, I would like to point out that you can see all of our Michigan Beer reviews here.

As part of Michigan Beer Month, I will also be reviewing a whole slew of Michigan beers. Some are new, some are old favorites, but all are made right here in our home state.

There are too many great breweries in this state, it almost isn’t fair. But if you’re just getting started, check out the following:
Bells Brewing.
Founder’s.
Arcadia Brewing Company.
Dark Horse.
Dragonmead.
Hopcat.
Kuhnhenn.
The Livery.
New Holland.
Shorts.
And that’s just naming a few favorites. There is all kind of great beer to be had in Michigan, so lets enjoy them. Cheers!

And oh man, I was not disappointed. I love me some hops, and this was never too hoppy for its own good, but it does pack a punch.

This is the first Hopslam I’ve had in a while.

Its color is very golden, and clear. As expected, the aroma is nice and floral, and crisp and a hint of malt. It pours with very little head.

The flavor is very hoppy, as you’d probably guess. There’s a nice little bitterness, and a hint of alcohol, which is rather incredible, since at 10%, you’d expect more than a hint of it. The hop bitterness masks it pretty well.

This is a little less malty than some of my other favorite IPAs, but one thing it does really well is hit you with TONS of hops and maintain the floral character in the flavor as well as the aroma.

If you like big IPAs, and love you some hops, this beer is for you.

9/10

Ian!

Anyone who knows me worth a damn, has a good solid idea of what I’m looking for in beer so these are my top 10, and why.

10. Three Floyds Behemoth Barleywine: The aroma was slightly deceiving, but this was a delightful barleywine. While Behemoth may not be the best adjective, it was quite a great ale. Not as bitter as i would have liked. But overall very well balanced. I was expecting more hops, with the barleywine tag, but if it were to just say delicious ale full of goodness, I would have to agree. An excellent offering.

9. Founders Backwoods Bastard: This is the bourbon barrel aged version of their famous Scotch ale, Dirty Bastard. I had a few tastes of this at the Michigan Brewers Guild Winter Beer Fest last year, and was pretty impressed. It definitely improved the quality of a scotch ale I was only mildly fond of.

8. Breckenridge Brewery 471 Small Batch IPA: This was the beer responsible for getting me off to a great start in Imperial IPA’s. While not extraordinarily hoppy, or malty, it is very well balanced and an excellent way to transition into the genre of Imperial IPA.

7. Founders Breakfast Stout: Every year there is an enormous waiting list for this beer. It is one of the truly great things to be made in the state of Michigan, and one of my two two favorite things to come out of Grand Rapids. The other being the band Brothers. This beer drives people stark raving mad. It makes sense though, because it is a glorious wonderful thing. Double chocolate coffee oatmeal stout. What an incredible thing to behold… I have not been impressed, however, by the Kentucky breakfast stout, which is the bourbon barreled version of this same stout. While much more limited, it just didn’t do it for me.

6. Arcadia Hopmouth IIPA: I’ll tell you, when they first released this fine ale, I almost cried. I have some sentiment about Arcadia to begin with, as it was their regular IPA that is responsible for my love of good beer. Without my first taste of that at Ashley’s a few years back, my beer enjoyment criteria may still have been limited to getting hwasted. Yes, hwasted. Anyway, the the deucers of this are usually quite reasonable, and it is everything a solid IIPA should be. It is malty, very hoppy, and actually well balanced. The slight thickness of the beer lends it an incredibly smooth quality. Well, smooth if you’re really into hops. Not to mention, the guys over at Arcadia are all super good dudes. They deserve all the fame and renown they can gather.

5. Dogfish Head World Wide Stout (2006): 18% by volume. Is it really necessary I say more?! Ok, maybe it is. This beast is complex. Massively complex. Black, dense, pour. no head. Sweet aroma, almost sickly… Scents of licorice, vanilla, and scotch. A little cognac as well. Full bodied and delicious. Very sweet. Lacking in bitterness, but that is made up for in complexity of malt flavor. If this beer were not 10 bucks a bottle, I would consume it regularly. Hell, it may even move up the list, but for what it is, it is always worth it to buy a bottle every year and get a taste. I will say, however, I had the 2005, in december of ’06, about a month before I had this one, and I did prefer it. This beer is always astonishing, although it damn well better be for 10 bucks a bottle.

4. Great Lakes Brewing Co. Blackout Stout: Named after the infamous blackout that occured in 2003, it is everything I think a stout should be: big, black, and bitter. Which, perhaps coincidentally, is how I take my coffee, and if I’m not mistaken, how Ian prefers his men. Now that I mention it, it is also how I like villains in the Punisher Max series, namely Barracuda. Yes, I like my stouts to have gold fronts engraved with a rather unkind sentiment.

3. Three Floyds Dreadnaught Imperial IPA: Absolutely brilliant. What a wonderful IIPA. A hint of sweetness and a whopping load of hops. Full of booze and wonderfulness. I only had this once, but it made a lasting impression. I really wish the Three Floyds brews were available in Michigan, but alas, I shall be relegated to picking them up when I’m in Chicago visiting family.

2. Bell’s Batch 7000: Some may think of this as a cop out, since it was a limited edition beer, but by the power of Grayskull, this beer was phenomenal. Imperial stout was given a new meaning when this beer was released. It was somewhere on the order of 14-15% by volume I believe, and it was thick as motor oil. Really quite ridiculously thick. This incredible stout was a meal in and of itself. People certainly like to say that about Guinness, but most of those people have never seen a real stout, much less an imperial stout. This thing must have clocked in over 600 calories a pint. It was black, black, and more black. Sweet, somewhat bitter, with lots of coffee and almost tar-like flavors, it was everything you expect an imperial stout to be, squared.

1. I feel like there should be some sort of drum roll for this. My number one beer, is to my close friends absolutely no surprise as I praise it with every opportunity I’m given. It is: Schmaltz Brewing Company‘s He’brew Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A. From my first taste of this beer, I was absolutely blown away. It pours very unassumingly, a pleasant copper-brown with a thick head. The smell is that of hops, lots and lots of hops. The dryness of the rye malt comes through very well in the malt profile, and really adds nicely to the alcohol flavors. As a whole, it is a little sweet, a little dry, and really bitter. At 10% by volume it is right up my alley. I cannot say enough good things about this beer. It really does knock me off my feet every time I have it. I’ve probably purchased in excess of two cases of this fine ale. Another bonus: He’brew puts all of their recipes on thinterwebs. If you’re ever looking for a gift for me, this is the best 6 dollar gift ever. I can sing this beer’s praises for hours and hours. It is the most wonderful thing I’ve ever tasted.

This took me such a ridiculously long time to type out, so I hope ya’ll are happy and planning on buying me one of these fine ales after lent is over.

-brian

Bell’s Brewery in Kalamazo, Michigan is known for a few things – Eccentric Day (the wildest annual brewery party you’ll ever see), Oberon (their perennial Michigan summer classic), and producing several solid, all-around good beers.

The Kalamazoo Stout is one of those all-around solid beers. It has a nice, chocolate color and aroma, and the malt balances well with the slight hop bitterness.

This is one that I go for when I want something dark, with some body, but not too adventurous or out there.

Can’t go wrong.

9/10

Ian!