Avery Mephistopheles Stout

Brewed by Avery Brewing Company
Style: Imperial Stout
Boulder, Colorado USA

355 ml bottle. Lord have the mercy. Pours a vicious demonic opaque black with a whipped tan head. Richly complex nose with notes of roasted malt, coffee, licorice, pepper and an strong alcohol presence. Thick overwhelmingly rich body. Deep chocolate cherry mixed with plums, figs and finishing with a nice alcohol warming. Need to stick a bottle or two in the cellar and revisit in a few years.

Bottled. Damn. This is badass. Pitch black with a huge mocha head, which I had to sip before my tulip overflowed. Noted grass, dark chocolate and lots of wood even then. The body is very thick and oily, quite sweet and clean with heavy malts and tons of licorice. Definitely has a "young" taste to it which could use some maturity. If you’ve ever had an unflavoured energy gel, it has some of those grapey fructose notes. It’s still a great treat, and unbelievably drinkable for something so strong.

Bottle, jan ’06. Black and opague. Malt and raisin in the aroma, touches of ash. Malty sweet, sugary flavor with ash and alcohol. Loads of alcohol, in fact. Cigars. Flavorfull beer, but IMO not a prize winner.

Bottle into snifter, Batch 2 (Nov 2006). Pours black hole black with a thin, shimmering dark tan head that oh-so-slowly thins out to a rim around the edges. Nose is huge rum-soaked raisins, a vinous boozey-ness, melted bittersweet chocolate - Avery’s description hits it on the head exactly. Taste is smooth and rich - boozey and hot, with a big wallop of dark fruits, caramelized brown sugar, chocolate, and a bit of vanilla, finishing with an oakey, slightly smokey, melted bittersweet chocolate, a lingering espresso bitterness, with just the slightest hint of sour hops, and more alcohol. To be honest, the alcohol is the only real drawback to this brew - so hot that you start to flinch about halfway through the bottle. Delicious and well crafted, but take the alcohol down 3 notches and you have one of the best impy stouts I’ve tried. As it is, delicious, but with drinkability to be laughed at.

Aroma of dark fruit, biscuit, caramel and alcohol. The flavor is very nice, with dark fruit, coffee and a smokey aftertaste. Perhaps a bit too alcoholic, but still nice.

Bottle. Dark black in color, not much head. Aroma of coffee, licorice, grapes and alcohol.Taste is the same. You could taste the alcohol towards the end. But what do you expect from a beer that is 16 percent.... Above medium texture. Not bad, just not my favorite stout.

Batch 3 Pours black with a thin brown head that quickly disapates. Aroma of alcohol, chocolate, and roasted malts. Flavor is sweet fruit, chocolate, and bitterness.

Batch 1 found about 2 weeks ago so this should be interesting. Pours black with carbonation apparent. The smell of alcohol took me back a bit but I guess I should have expected that at 15.1% ABV. Tastes similar to the DFS WWS but I would prefer this because it has a smoother finish. Hints of chocolate, coffee, fruit, and alcohol. Good to try at least once but wouldn’t drink it normally.