Avery Mephistopheles Stout

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

Bottle, batch 3, Nov. 2007, 16% abv, bought at Ølbutikken in Copenhagen and cellared properly for nine months. Comes with a red foil around the neck and pours an almost devil-black, oil-like content under a latte coloured, bubbly foam that left a few spotty lacings on the glass. Promising aroma of roasted malts backed up with raisin and dark chocolate. The flavour is at first marked by the emergence of bittersweet liquorice. The mid-part brings notes of black currant, oaky vanilla and rum-like hints. Halfway bitter, dark fruits to the ending, along with the lingering heat of subdued alcohol. Full bodied and well balanced. Maybe a little too sweet, otherwise superb (at home in Tromsø, 12.06.2009).

Even after 6months in the cellar this beer still isn’t ready. Still very hot and young, this beer needs maybe a year or two to start really picking up its full brilliance. Even being as young as this beer is it packs some incredible flavors. Rich port flavors, dark fruit, cherries, oak, vanilla, and lots of roasted chocolate flavors. Like sipping a fine glass of port this beer is big, with layers of flavor that settle in waves kicking in memories of desserts long ago, whether it be chocolate covered cherries or a port and chocolate pairing. This beer will just keep gaining quality for a long time to come.

12-oz, courtesy Tever--and thank you! Pours deep black with another comically massive dun-colored head. Gorgeous. Humongous maple notes on the nose and they carry right through to the palate. Coming right after the Expedition as this did in our tasting this afternoon, this seems comparatively thin, but it’s still an enormous beer, it’s just that it’s so intensely sweet. Yummy but hard to know when I’d be in the mood for a whole bottle of this.

This beer pours with a demonic darkness, covered by a shroud of tan head. Lace lingers in a purgatory state of being. Nose was pumping out sweet aromas of candy, fresh-baked yeast cake and freshly crushed vanilla beans. Mouthfeel was beyond amazing ... took me back to that first Beast, and then some. If you could swallow liquid silk, this is what it would feel like. I’d give it a 6 if I could. Man, where do I start? As I sip incessantly, I can’t type as fast as I’m thinking. Chocolate, black licorice, earthy wood, cooked raisins, quenchy apricot, brown sugar, plums, vanilla, toasted bread, creamed coffee, sweet grass, peat, very rich molasses ... it’s a swirled hurricane of flavors and aromas. Alcohol is hidden amazingly well, but it does surface beautifully in the background. Hops are healthy, but the hop boldness is very complementing ... enough to be classic Avery, but not "over-the-top," as some might say. The fat-ass malts have the advantage on this teeter-totter. Man, what an incredible beer! Mephistopheles pushes the Imperial Stout style to new levels, and it more than raises the bar. RERATE (Dec. 2007 batch; just bottled): They nailed it again; what a fantastic beer. Seems a bit fruitier than the sample I had months ago. I enjoyed it immensely.

This poured black with a surprisingly lively brown bubbly head that faded quickly. Very sweet aroma, hints of chocolate and stewed fruit and ethanol. Not as roasty as I would have guessed, and no coffee notes for me. Very sweet oily palate. Molasses, chocolate/toffee, vegemite (haven’t used that term in a while!) and fig-jam fruit with a warm alcohol finish that remains smooth and very well integrated for its calibre. Not what I was expecting, but enjoyable nonetheless.

12 oz bottle, batch 1, Jan, 2006. Poured with a complete absence of color, dead dark soulless night with tan head. Aroma starts out with a bit of alcohol then just after that the smokiness, dark chocolate, coffee and maple syrup enter the picture. Flavor, where to start? Chocolate, molasses, Vermont’s best maple syrup, sweet caramel malts and sweet fruity cherries/grapes. Thick viscous mouth feel that coats the inside of my mouth with a pleasing maple syrupy aftertaste. Buried beneath a mountain of complex sweetness is a murmur of hop bitterness yearning to be heard. As the beer warms the flavors of alcohol and maple smokiness intensify. Every time I test the aroma it seems to change. I think I smell alder wood smoked salmon. Eventaully the sweetness piled up and I only finished 6oz. No problem, 6 more oz for another day. Giddey-Up!

I performed the Greater Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram tonight and this is what happened. I released his spirit. Demon was angry. Poured thick tar black. No light in his soul. Tan head. Smelled like yeast, grandma’s prune juice mixed with vodka, and a little bit of applesauce. Like a jilted lover, he became totally bestial but could not disguise a childlike sweetness. Immature and pretentious, he came on strong for strong’s sake like a college kid on steroids. Simpleminded fratboy who can’t hold your liquor! I screamed in Enochian and said that he’d have to wait at least five years before the next time I popped his cap. Then I succumbed (why can’t I say succame?). I had an incubus in the house...

Amazingly rich nose that screams chocolate covered cherries. No light density whatsoever, black as hell with a small brown ring of foam. Smooth, creamy milk chocolate, black cherries, mouthfeel is dominantly complex, choco covered grahams, smores, hazelnuts, milk chocolate, mild dark fruits with amazingly balanced hoppiness. This beer just reaches out and offers everything on the first date. Caramel, toffee, dates and even some macerated grape concentrate. Dry roasted espresso, with a mild smoky chocolate finish. Delicious!