Chicagoist's "Beer of the Week:" Bell's Batch 10,000

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Dec 17, 2010 10:40PM

We here at Chicagoist had our monthly staff meetup at Quencher's last night, which may account for some of the staff's slow movements today. Kids.

Anyway, the venerable Bucktown beer bar had a true treat on tap for Karl, Josh, and the other ambitious beer geeks among us. Bell's Batch 10,000 is the last in the series of commemorative, limited edition ales brewed by the Grand Rapids brewery. If you'll remember our review of Bell's Batch 9,000, we turned that into a shower beer, particularly loving the taste of licorice and molasses in that brew.

Batch 10,000 throws in everything but the kitchen sink to give the batch series a fitting sendoff. Over 100 different varieties of malted grain and 60 different types of hops are used in the brewing process, rendering this a different beast than 9,000. the 12.5 percent alcohol content remains intact. If you ever needed a winter warmer for a beer, this is the one.