Avery Mephistopheles Stout

12 oz bottle. Batch 4. Until tonight, after I tried The Beast, this was the most powerful beer I’d ever tasted. Now it’s second. What a complex beer! Black as midnight, or to use a less cliched phrase, darker than a demon’s arsehole. Whiskey undertone. Black coffee. Quality beer that never loses its head, clear to the last drop. This is a stout that will leave you on the ground. A stout like no other. This is Mephistopheles.

Bottle at Copenhagen Beerfestival 09. Dark color, short head. Very malty aroma. Roasted taste, coffee, heavy alcohol. Bit overdone, like many of the avery brews.

Pours a deep dark brown with a brown head. Aroma is dark roast, chocolate, coffee, rasins. Flavor is roast, coffee, creamy, soy sauce, booze, dark fruits. A little over the top, but still enjoyed it.

Nov. 2008 bottle - Pours solid opaque black with a big off-brown head considering the strength. The aroma is all dark fruits like raisins, plums, and even sweet prunes. The flavor imitates but adds nice roast and finishing flavors of coffee with cream leading into it. This is surprisingly easy to drink considering the 16%.

2006 bottle, batch 1. Courtesy of Adrian. Huge thanks for this vintage gem. Pours a dangerous looking black. Nose is crazy vinous. Dark rich malt, sugar, alcohol, cherry, raisin. Flavor is just insanely huge with a massive oily mouthfeel. Soy sauce, chocolate covered raisins, cherry pits, toasted grain and alcohol. No real burn which is very suprising. Drinks like its about 10%. Age has been kind to this beer. Which is pretty harsh and boozy when young. Very nice.

Bottled, batch 3, Nov 2007: Pours black with a low but dense head. Sweet aroma of liquorice, dark chocolate and kippers. Thick moutfeel. Sweet and malty with chocolate and vanilla notes. The alcohol burns a little on the tongue but in a good way.

Pours a deep black color with a decent sized tan head forming. Sheets of lace are left behind. Smells a bit like alcohol with some odd choclate notes coming through a bit later. Strong roasted qualities bring out overly bitter coffee. Very strong notes of alcohol, almost a bit boozy. Some sweet fruits coming through after the beer warms a bit. Finish is just overly bitter and not very enjoyable. The high alcohol does more to hurt this beer then help. My last sip really tasted a bit like cough syrup. All of those flavors just didn’t meld together very good and there were too many off aromas and flavors in this brew. A shame, I was really looking forward to this one. I will never have this beer again.

Batch 3 (Nov 2007) bottle. Pours black with a fine brown head. The aroma has quite a bit of dark fruits, perhaps including cherry, chocolate, coffee, toffee, and alcohol. Taste is relatively similar, though the alcohol flavor is a bit more expressive than in the aroma-you can really taste the rum-and the anise is a very nice complement.