Review: Penobscot Bay Old Factory Whistle Scottish Ale3
fact sheet
- Style: Scotch Ale
- Serving: Bottle
- Volume: 22oz
- ABV: 6.20%
After a long weekend of moving, it’s nice to settle down with a beer and relax on a Sunday night. Thinking that it would be the perfect beer for the occasion, I chose the Penobscot Bay Old Factory Whistle Scottish Ale from the “to be reviewed” area of my fridge.
Poured from the 22oz bottle, the Old Factory Whistle is a slightly cloudy dark amber color. There is a small off-white head that quickly fades to nothing and leaves almost no lacing on the glass. The aroma is where I first started to become worried. I expected a good amount of malt and a bit of alcohol, instead the aroma was a bit flat. There was some caramel and a bit of sweetness followed by the slightest hint of alcohol.
After the slightly disappointing nose, my hopes of enjoying a full flavored Scottish Ale started to quickly diminish. The flavors were a bit of an improvement from the nose but not by much. The Old Factory Whistle started off with a bit of caramel sweetness and a bit of bitterness. The flavors are overall pretty weak and a bit thin/watery, especially for a Scottish Ale. The Old Factory Whistle finishes a bit dry and has a slightly off-putting aftertaste.
I really wanted to like this beer, but it fell flat. The nose was far too weak and the flavors weren’t that much of an improvement. It is a good beer, there isn’t anything that bad about it, but compared to other Scottish Ales and what a Scottish should be, it really doesn’t make the grade.
Rating
out of 100
Mike Hoff is a Senior Writer for Passion Beer.
He is always seeking out the new, weird and wonderful in the world of beer. When he is not writing for the site, you can normally find him with a camera around his neck and a beer in hand.
You guys are aware that removing a decimal from your scoring system doesn’t make it any more accurate or sensible, right?
The move to is allow greater flexibility. Some of the writers didn’t *like* the decimals, so there were too many scores of “8″ that probably weren’t as accurate as they could be in the writer’s mind, without using a decimal.
The 100-scale will allow more accuracy across the board, from the writer’s perspective. Because they WILL follow it this time!
I agree with Shane. Though in the old rating system I could have just given this a 5.8 but I hate doing decimals other than .5 for rating stuff, call me weird I know.