Avery Mephistopheles Stout

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

Bottle at ØLbaren. Black - light brown head. High licorice, light liqueur sweetness, roasted, burnes, coffee, syrup, soya, brown sugar, high sweetness. LIght mouthfeeling => compaired to all the sugar, syrup and candy that stays on the lips !!!

(Bottled) Almost black with a small, beige head. Strongly malty, strongly licoricey, lightly salty aroma. Intensely malty, quite alcoholic flavor with lots of roasted malt, and a strong licorice finish. Full-bodied, low-carbonated, burning-alcoholic palate. Somewhat too alcoholic, but surprisingly drinkable and balanced after a while. Not in large doses, though.

Batch 2: Pitch black with thick brown head. Weird looking - bubbles inside of bubbles. Something already indicated that this was serious. Aroma was burnt malts, hops & alcohol. Sweet sugar, roasted malts coffee/chocolate & dark fruits. Alcohol is extremely well hidden. Only light burn. Soft & smooth carbonation. What a well balanced & tasty beer!

Sample at EBF Copenhagen. Nice head with good duration. Color is black. Aroma and taste are rich and vinous with roast malt, licorice and notes of coffee.

Poured an opaque black color with a medium sized tan head that quickly diminished, leaving spots of lacing on the glass. Intense aroma, chocolate, roasted malts, very vinous, smoke, dark fruits, cherries, nuts, and rum-soaked raisins. Incredible aroma. Taste is tons of sweet chocolate and espresso, roasted malts, light sour cherries, faint vanilla, some nuts, and a sharp alcohol finish.

Batch 2, November 2006. Black color with a thick tan head. Strong piney hop aroma with a hefty whack of rum. Bitter wood and massive hop taste. Very piney with some citrus touches. The coffee is there, but not prominent at all. A little plum and syrup finish. Very fine, but a lot like Surly Darkness and 3F Dark Lord, it’s an Imperial Stout that’s almost like a dark IIPA. Tasty, but I’m going to let one sit for a year or two.

Batch 1 bottle, many samples at the EBF in Boston, 2/11/06.
The head is nearly retentive. Tan and foamy, though dense when you first pour it. It laces quite well, which for a filtered beer is incredible. Ok enough appearance, if Avery was bottle conditioned or unfiltered it would be a 5. This is the next best thing.
The aroma is the best part, with raisins, dates, toffee, brown sugar and caramel all overexuding themselves. It’s like they beat every last drop of aroma they could from the malt. Thick, rich and, carrying very well (nor does it diminish as you get near the end). Clear and chewy, with a soft carbonation and mild chocolate sweetness filling the middle part of the malt ride. Finishing, it adds sherry, vanilla, and light chewy graham crackers. Not as rich and soothing a mouthfeel as Bells Expedition or Dark Lord 04, and not quite as stylish as Free State Owd Macs, but really well-executed, not overly acidic or hoppy at all, with tons of raisins and kahlua-like chocolate-coffee notes. Impressively masked is the alcohol. 9/4/8/4/18

Batch 2 bottle shared with SuIIy and JoshuaB on 2/2/07
It wasnt even the alcohol that made this one much worse than remembered. But a rather beany, powdery, breadiness that lingered on the finish of the flavor and seemed ingrained in to the beer. Very dulling to the fruits and roast and chocolate. Coffee was too liquorous and the beer a bit too syrupy. I can’t say I hated it, but it’s just too forceful and does not have any of the smoothness or elegance that batch 1 had (at least while it was chilled). Texture, while big and sugary, still suffers from the cheap carbonation. None of the cherry-vanilla-chocolate liqueur smoothness that I remember so vividly from the first batch either (that divine aroma it had). Not horrible and much better than you usually get from Avery, but not something I’ll be buying again. 7/4/6/3/12 Score reflects the second batch.

(Bottle 12 Fl oz) Dark brown to black color, brown head. Sweet strong and alcohol scent. Burnt and smoke, raissin and MAdeira. Lots of high level alcohol. Thick mouthfeel. Extreme heavy raissin burnt sweet, Maderia alcohol, roasted taste, sooooo complex. Warming. Low bitterness. A bit burnt aftertaste.