Avery Mephistopheles Stout

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

12oz bottle. Deep dark pour, dark tan head. Huge roasty, caramel, fruity aroma, very rich. Big dark fruit flavor, very big rich chocolatly with an alcohol punch at the end, quite good.

12 OZ bottle via footbalm (thanks eric!). Rating #300, been saving this one for a couple months. Pours almost black with an average size tan head.Nose is mostly bandaids, medicinal, and a bit of chocolate..ooo this is scarey, lol...Taste is actually pretty good. The band aid thing is there, but there is also a nice sweet and sour chocolate/coffee/mocha plum/berry thing going on. Very unique. Very sweet and alocholic....Sort of a cross between a brett sour brew, a dopplebock and a rich Imp Stout. It works, and although i would not want more than one of these (or half of one) in a setting, it is a unique tastey beer...now if they can just get rid of the band aid aroma, lol....they will have a world class Imp Stout! Oh and at 15.1% it will $%#& you up in about a half a glass, lol!

Pours a deep black hue with a minimal tan/brown head of fine micro-bubbles with decent lacing. Aromas of bourbon, chocolate+ coffee(the usual impy aromas) a light vanilla and good old alcohol sweetness. Mouthfeel is surprisingly medium bodied for the flavor and how Avery beers are a little too sweet and over-cloying. Flavors of raisins/prunes, honey, vanilla, a little toasted nuts and a finish not unlike fresh espresso. Very intriguing. I let this guy warm up in the bottle for about 20 minutes before cracking open, and I am glad I did as the flavors are on par. While it is sweet, it isn’t bad, but tronraner is right when he says that it could use some cellaring. wow...... This is definitely Avery’s best brew, as I normally feel their beer is over-rated.

Thanks be to my wonderful wife that picked up some of this for me when I was too busy to make it out to the store.

Very opaque, zero light comes through. Pours slow and thick with a big brown thick viscous head. Lotsof small bubbles, occasional big one errupting through what appears to be hardened lava from a volcano. What is cool about the head is that it doesnt decrease, it more fades and leaves a thick lace. The nose is thick with alcohol coffee and is bitter. Interesting really because the taste is pretty different. Initally it is very strong and uber sweet, sugary, kind oflike grape skin, then more alcohol then quickly to malts and coffee then back to this sweetness. Yeast and sugar that is mostly fading.

Now not to knock either one of these beers but this reminds me so much of another one of my favourites and that is the Dogfish Head 120 min IPA. That sweetness there is just about the same as here but more coffee here. Wonderful, really. Ive got one bottle of both of these left. Im gonna have them in series. Mmmm, tasty.

12 Oz bottle of batch numero 3 purchased at Knightly Spirits in Orlando. First off, I should note the biases here. One, I really like Avery for beers like this. Like the Beast, yeah, it burned like hell, but had character, lots of it. Two, I just finished a 120 minute and a WWS, and was traveling for 14 hours today, so where is my mind? I couldn’t say. Three: I had no bottle opener, so I had to carefully pry open these beers with the back of the giant metal clips on the hotel coat hangers. And four: I am drinking this out of a plastic hotel cup. The aroma of this is so overpowering. It just wreaks of heavy malt, chocolate, coffee, licorice andddd.... alcohol (surprise). This doesn’t have the sugary malt smell that the WWS has, it has more of a spicy alcohol scent, which actually, isn’t that bad. The flavor...well, that’s just devilish. It hurts the mouth. The coffee flavors are the most painful at first. Then its the alcohol and dark fruits. You would have to boil down some dried blueberries, strawberries, raisins, and figs- then puree them to get this sort of shenanigans. The really good thing about this is the palate. If you can get by the strength of the booziness, it is very velvety and smooth. But in the end, this just, well, it just hurts. It feels too raw. Its strong enough that it should be mandated by the state to stick it in some charred oak for X amount of months. Regardless, it is a memorable beer to finish off this long day.

big thanks to JimMack for this in a "doorstep neighbor trade"! the body is black, no light goes through. aroma is deep roasted malt, some dark chocolate and dark fruits like prune. I was hoping this would be a little sweeter than the samaels and less boozy. flavor is not what I expected. it was cloying sweet residual sugars, alcohol malt. so it was too sweet and also too boozy. I am just not an avery fan. carbonation is tingly from the vodka-like bite. hot, some prune and carbonized sugar. must say I am glad that avery has now dispelled their "demons" series. I’d rather have a DFH WWS.

Old rating March ’06? Black beer, hardly even any crimson in the edges. Aroma is dark malt, licorice, maybe some vanilla. Taste is moderately roasty with dark fruits, vanilla, and alcohol. Mouthfeel is thick, really thick, only slightly less than Expedition/Dark Lord.

Pours a opaque black witha a medium brown head and nice lacing. Aroma is moderately sweet cocoa, coffee, some cherry and vanilla. Flavor is molasses, chocolate, date, caramel, honey, some cherry, vanilla and a light alcohol burn. Finishes long and sweet with a burning sensation on the back of the throat. Creamy full body, medium carbonation.