Avery Mephistopheles Stout

Oily black with bright brown head. Standard high-powered stout aroma with a bit more alcohol. Actually the aroma is not nearly as powerful as I had hoped or expected. Taste is sweet, and intensely roasted with a lingering viscous sense of tooth discoloration. Alcohol is not nearly as apparent as one might expect for 16%. $8/12oz

Pours a thick, pitch black. Strong rising head that is a dark reddish brown. Head lasted through the whole time drinking it. Smell was sweet with chocolate, caramel, and roasted malts. Taste was rich and full. Chocolate, malts, and alcohol. Flavor lingered in the mouth, wanting more. Great beer, my new favorite!

Batch #2. Bottle. Pours black with a medium frothy brown head with some sticking around. Not much in the Aroma department for such a big beer. Sweet, tangy with a little roastyness and chocolate. Taste is sweet alchohol with some chocolate and burnt malt. Just too cloying.

Bottle, Batch 1. This stuff is a mess. Poured a nice black with a thin brown head....then it all went downhill. Syrupy sweet aroma, candy, black licorice. Where is the bitterness? Where are the hops? Tangy flavor, it just seemed off. Was tough to drink, but there was no way I was pouring out a 12oz bottle that cost me $8. I really got screwed on this one. I would not even call this a stout. Completely unbalanced, no roasted bitterness. Urgh, my stomach is churing just thinking about how bad it was. Avery, you done me wrong...

Pours a pitch black with a light brown head. Very thick and rich looking. Very roasty and nutty smell. Light chocolate and caramel with some roasted malts. Extremely sweet taste with some rich cocholate and roasted malts taste that just jump out at you from start to finish. Wow, what body! Just wonderfully flavorful from beginning to end. Really smooth for what a monster of a beer this is at 15%. Its like unwrapping a piece of candy and savoring it for a while. Excellent job.

A wonderful big, black beer with little carbonation. A delicious, sweeter stout with only one problem: It’s a little "hot" tasting. Of course, this goes away after about half of the beer!

At the 2007 Big Beer, Belgians, & Barleywines Festival in Vail. OUCH!!! My god. This is as black as my soul. The brown head is dramatically perched atop this abyss. Here’s how freakin’ awesome this beer is: it kicks ass at a big beer festival where all the other beers usually kick ass. This is like a coffee/molasses/vanilla Jello shot. On wheels. Flying down a dead-end street at 90 miles an hour. I got a slight bit of soy, but mostly a killer roasted tobacco blast of alcohol followed by a sweet creamy wave of malt smoothness. Lord have mercy.

12 oz bottle. Pours a pitch black with a half-finger mahogany head. The aroma is of coffee, malt, chocolate, raisins, etc. The flavor is VERY sweet and creamy of roasted coffee and chocolate. Smooth with medium carbonation and a very apparent warming (alcohol). Very good.