If you ever find yourself in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and you love great beer? You are in luck. Pennsylvania has a number of brewpubs and breweries from one end of PA to the other. The Appalachian Brewing Company of Harrisburg, PA is an outstanding brewpub/breweries with three PA locations; Harrisburg, Gettysburg, and Camp Hill, PA. I recently paid their Gettysburg, PA location and enjoyed some fantastic beers. Beer is available to go as well, and I was able to pick up a limited release 22 oz bottle of Batch No. 666 Ale.
Only 600 bottles of this beer was released in June of 2010, and can be purchased at the brewery's three locations for $6.66 a bottle. Stylistically this beer is an interesting one. It is a sub style of porter known as Scotch porter. This delicious, flavorful beer style can be found more on the brewpub level, but I have had some excellent bottled examples. Scotch porter takes the best of a robust, roasty porter and a sweet, malty, scotch ale. The end result is a beer just packed with big aromas, and flavors.
Batch No. 666 Ale pours to a deep brown, to black color, with a thick, creamy, tan head, and a moderate amount of carbonation. The nose on this beer is jam packed with big aromas. Sweet malt, caramel, light roast, coffee, dark chocolate, estery fruit, and piney hops. The palate is rich and full on the tongue, with lots of big flavors of sweet malt, butterscotch, coffee, light roasty, dark chocolate, with estery flavors of raisin and prune. This beer finishes with more big flavors of sweet malt, dark chocolate, roast, and estery fruit. Batch No. 666 Ale ends with some piney hop bitterness and some peppery alcohol that warms.
This is a wonderful beer to sip and savor. At 7.7% abv this is a great beer to relax with after work or a big meal. It would pair well with a number of deserts, and would go well with cigars as well. I find this type of beer more suited for the winter months, but would make a nice night cap beer in the summer months. Very limited release, this one can be purchased at Appalachian brewery locations, with a 3 bottle limit per customer. For more information visit the brewery's site at:
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