Well for this review I kept going over all the light colored wonderful summer ales available out there to try right now. After a while I began to feel like a trash can being stuffed in with a rock trying to squeeze in a decision on all those other kind of ales, and so instead I went with a wonderfully malty repose to such an issue. Truthfully I've been meaning to do a review on what is one of my personal favorite of ales for sometime, but never quite fit it in till now. When one is overwhelmed go with what you know and love, and Port Townsend's Scotch Style Ale is something I definitely love! This scotch style ale literally kicked Boundary Bay's Scotch Style Ale right out from under it's crown to become the king of this style amongst the Northwest breweries. While Boundary Bay, and Silver City's are close (with charging strongly from the back), Port Townsend in my opinion is making fit and finish the best of these around our little beer hub. It combines that wonderful malty taste accompanied with a nice sense of sweetness that is sometimes lost when making a scotch style ale. The problem being that it has a malty taste that is all to apparent, or it has the more traditional sweetness that cancels out all the other flavors making the brew taste closer to a barleywine than a scotch style ale. This one balances brilliantly and has that familiar peat taste just like actual scotch. Again the flavor is never compromised as a beer though, that peaty flavor (or wood aged flavor as many of these ales are) never smothers the actual taste of what type of beverage this is supposed to be. The beer has a nice ruby-red/brown coloring to it, and overall silky smooth. It's the comfy-blanket of beers to be sure. While it is not labeled on the bottle, by rigorous self-testing (yes my sacrifice is your benefit I'll drink it as much as it takes to get the right answer) I would label this one at somewhere near 8% alcohol so your going to feel a little fresh and a slightly wobbly after inbibing of said brew. It has a very deep sweet smell to it to if you desire to try it from a snifter, just another little added bonus in this treasure trove. If your lucky enough I've even happened upon an Imperial version of this Scotch ale which doubled the entire experience of this brew, I've only found that on tap at the Parkway Tavern in Tacoma though. For the regular scotch style ale the bottle can be found at 99 bottles, Tacoma Boys, Metropolitan Market, and I've seen it at QFC a time or two so it is readily available compared to some other beers out there. As this is one of my favorite brews the next part is a great shame for me, of the 98 breweries in WA this is one of the few I still have not been to! The horror, it ravages my soul everyday. I press on though, if not for the illustrious reason of shouting the praises of said brew. So anyway you can run, hurdle, tunnel, ride a goat, whatever it takes, this is one of those brews I feel everyone should try. And yes that means everybody IPA snobs, this is a brew not to be snubbed.
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