Avery Fourteen

Formerly brewed at Avery Brewing Company
Style: American Strong Ale
Boulder, Colorado USA

Poured a deep brown with a big beige head. Aroma is ripe fruit, belgian yeast, and sweet malt. Flavor is raisin, toffee, clove and bananas. Very complex. Glad I have a couple more of these to see how they age.

Bottle. Moderately sweet fruity aroma. Deep brownish red body, nice size light brown head. Flavor is sweet, with berries and malt, also some alcohol. Finish has very prominent alcohol.

The bomber decants as half completely opaque purplish brown-black liquid and half tan froth that requires minutes to subside, revealing demented op-art lace. The aroma struggles to combine thick chocolate-cocoa scents with fruity-tart impressions of blueberry, sweet cherry, and grape soda... and a new car/hot vinyl character casts an unwelcome pall. Flavors convey themselves as pure bedlam... one’s tongue is pummelled by bittersweet bakers’ chocolate and concentrated winey Costa Rican coffee, riddled with raisins and soy sauce, and underscored by phenolic clove and plastic tastes. Weirdly uber-thick milky, pasty palate. Some fetid fishty twang in the aftertaste. Promised hops are unable to emerge from this tarpit of a beer. Closer to a poorly designed imperial stout than anything else, the libation smothers the drinker with discombobulating sensory overload. Brutish and sodomizing.

2007 bottle from Eagle River Liquor in Fulton, IL. Pours a slightly hazy dark chocolate brown with and absoutely huge rocky tan head that lasts forever and just looks beautiful. Aroma is of lots of dark fruit, toffee, caramel, fresh taffy, a decent amount of floral and citrus hops and a hint of alcohol. Flavor is caramel, toffee, roast, lots and lots of candied dates, overripe banana, a little raisin, molasses, burnt sugar, and some pine and citrus hops. FInish is dried fruit, a belgian like yeastiness, and some nice citrus, bitter and maybe some herbal hops. Body is medium, rather slick and very clean, this brew hides 9.5% really well. I would love to compare this to a fresh bottle, I bet this is better.

22oz. bomber: This one pours a ruby tinged, dark brown color. It was fairly clear. There was quite a bit of a tan head on it, which left lots of lacing. Nice aroma. Lots of dark fruits, caramel and toffee to the nose. Big, rich malty taste. Actually some coffee notes on top. Balanced well with lots of hops to have a slight dryness at the end. Surprisingly no sweetness to the taste. Very Nice.

Bottle. Pours deep ruby with a beige head. Sweet raisin/plum aroma with caramel and molasses. The flavor is not overly sweet as the aroma implies. It’s a bit toasty with chocolate and dark fruity sweetness. Very light hops in the finish. Quite good.

Pours dark dark brown with large frothy head. Aroma is loaded with dark fruit- raisin, caramel, and molasses with a dash of hops. Flavor is somewhat bitter in both ibus and from the malt character. Roasty with a bit of alcohol. Palate is medium- nice but could be a little more full.

pours almost black with a large tan head. Aroma is huge on malt, caramel, with some definite sweetness, perhaps dark fruit. Flavor is very good- malts and alcohol dominate, with some notes of caramel, bitter chocolate, and cane sugar. Mouthfeel is a little light which detracts a bit from its overall score, but still a fine ASA.