Avery Mephistopheles Stout

Pours a jet black with a thick, dense tan head with loads of lacing. Fantastic aroma - mincemeat, oatmeal cookie, soy, and butter/pastry. Tastes of thick, milky dark malt with notes of soy, black bean, cookie, dates, mincemeat pie, and figs. Strong alcohol notes, as well. Creamy body with a delightful warm finish, perhaps a tad under-carbonated. This is one hell of a beer - many thanks to Hog Town Harry for this one!

From bottle .. Batch 2 : Pours a black as night color wth a finger and a half creamy brown head with good lacing. Nose of roasted nut chocolate, coffee, and some alcohol. A very thick mouthful with a alcohol burn down the throat. Flavor is chocolate, coffee, roasted nuts, and alcohol down the back strech..kinda rum like. Not bad, but a little to much alcohol on the end for my enjoyment.

Batch 2 Nov 2006. Extremely complex beer. Gratifying. Thick/oily tongue (and glass) coating goodness. I smell cherry and maybe plumes. Hint of coffee. The burn is there, but with this beer, it seems like part of the charm.

Deep dark black, Whispy brown head. Nutty-chocolate aroma, hints of cherries. Bitter chocolate/prune flavour and a bitter sweet finish. This has a lovely thick mouthfeel, I had an instant face flush much like when I drink a strong port or wine. Also has hints of Arabic coffee. A very enjoyable drink.

Bottle, Batch 2. Pours an oily/syrupy black color with tan head. Aroma is roasted malt, fruit, and caramel. Taste is also an explosive blend of dark fruit, caramel, chocolate, and coffee. This is definitely a beer to savor with 16% abv. Finish is long and goes from sweet to bitter. Very complex beer.

Bottle batch 2 Nov 2006. Pours out black and ominous with a thin off white head. Just an explosion of alcohol, caramel, chocolate, and vanilla. Taste is a massive mouthful! Big chocolate malt, velvet smoothness that comes off like an after dinner drink on steroids. I definitely get the hints of cherry and rum in the flavor, also. Take this one slowly, its STRONG! Aftertaste is thick and lingering. An over the top beer from a brewery that specializes in this type of brewing. Boring beer drinkers will be freaked out by this, but this is a special beer that blows your taste buds to pieces and makes you want to keep searching for new and interesting beers.

Bottle. Batch 2. Wow, nothing subtle about this beer. Charcoal is the strongest aroma after the alcohol. With that is toasted, dark chocolate, strong coffee, molasses, resin and leather. Head is small, milk chocolate colored, between creamy and fizzy, mostly diminishing and has good lacing. Color is black. Flavor starts heavily sweet and the extra long finish is moderately sweet, lightly acidic and heavily bitter. Palate is full, syrupy with soft carbonation and it coats a snifter like thinned motor oil. It also finishes heavily alcoholic. Definitely a "take the rest of the night off" kind of beer.

Nov. 2006 bottle. Yikes. My high hopes for this big boy were let down. Extremely raw, unbalanced, and probably the booziest beer I’ve had to date. I know it’s 16%, but geez...is is suppose to be that hot? This thing needs years to mellow out. Other than that - the mouthfeel was a bit thinner than expected. A nice aroma, but not really all that complex - mostly dark chocolate. Kick ass appearance in the snifter...picture perfect. But in the end, it was really just s huge alcohol bomb and the drinkability suffered big time!