Versuch's doch mal!

Sentence Discussions German
#1

I have only ever seen this written without an apostrophe. Is this one of the old, pre-spelling-reform optional spellings?

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#2

The apostrophe marks an omission (Versuch es doch mal!).

I’d say you could call it “formally written colloquial language”.
If you omit the apostrophe, you could call it “colloquially written colloquial language”.

I think you could also say it’s a means for the writer to express whether s/he agrees with the register or not. Especially with quotes of colloquial language in an otherwise formal text you would definitely write it this way.