Avery Mephistopheles Stout

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

Sweet and syrupy flavor. Opaque black with tan head. Complex sweetness, hoppiness, and roastiness. A bit of dried fruit and molasses with a strong roasty/hop finish and a bit of an alcohol kick. Very good.

Batch 4. Pours Dark brown with a light brown head, foamy, mostly diminishing. The aroma is sweet, figs, raisin. The mouth feel is creamy, thick, a little oily. The taste is kinda molasses, raisin, got some flavors lurking in the back, a little alcohol. I have batch 1,2, 3 and another 4 aging. I think more flavors will come out with age.

Dark. Intense. Heavy alcohol mixed with some fruit and chocolate. Well done when left to sit.

12 oz bottle from Binny’s I think (Orland Park, IL). This has been in the cellar for a long while. Pours a pitch black opaque pour, a big brown head that laces well, stays moderate size, thick pour. Aromas are roasted malts, coffee, dark chocolate and sweet molasses and caramel, sweeter without a bitter edge from tons of coffee and roasted malts, almost a syrupy sweetness. Initial is bitter, roasted malts and coffee come in stronger with a decent smokiness in the body, some dark chocolate and the bitterness really sticks to the palate. A dose of raisin, caramel, toffee, and some syrupy molasses.. chocolate really starts to come in further into the beer, roast asserts itself, with some coffee and a bit of smoke.. which fill out well a few more sips in. The aroma is a bit offputting for me, a little boozy and sweet, but the flavors help redeem those elements. Pretty tasty, looks good, just isn’t towards the upper half of it’s genre for me.. to each, their own.

Cask Stillage from the Jug at the GABF, Colorado Convention Center 26/09/2009 Beige head. Big coffee roast aroma. Black smooth on the palate hoppy and very strong in alcohol with lots of bitterness in a lasting chocolate and coffee roast finish.

Black with minimal light brown head and no mentionable lazings. Aroma is sweet, somewhat salty and alcoholic. Promises heavy roasted and sweet flavours which it delivers. Rather simplistic and straight forward, a bit too burned and sweet.

2007 vintage. Dark brown, basically black. A small beige head settles kind of fast and leaves minimal lacings. The smell is loaded with aromas of dark chocolate and cocoa. Lots of coffee and roasted malts as well. The alcohol is very noticeable and with deep breaths I pick up lots of piercing and slightly medicinal alcohol fumes. After a while, hints of wet blanket appear, a result from the cellaring I guess and I suspect that further cellaring wouldn’t do this any good. The taste is sweet at first with aromas of roasted malts, chocolate and espresso. The acidity you sometimes get from roasted malts is kept at bay. Notes of dark fruits, prunes and licorice. The alcohol becomes present already in the mouth and increases in strength toward the finish. There are some bitter flavors in the finish, but most of all there is a powerful taste of sweet and basically burning alcohol with notes of raisins and wood. The finish is very long and the taste of alcohol sticks around for ever in the mouth. Full bodied with a somewhat creamy texture. I don’t think this one completely manages to pull of what it tries to achieve. A 16% ABV imperial stout is risky business and lots of things can go wrong with such a brew, and this one holds up reasonably well. But although well integrated, the alcohol gets a little to prominent and basically eradicates any possible subtleties to appear, so complexity gets a little low. But it’s still fairly balanced and other than the overly powerful alcohol, I enjoyed it. Serving type: bottle (Copy of old Beer Advocate review)

BOOM! Got this bottle at Surdyk’s in Minneapolis a month or so ago. Poured with a medium tan head and no lace. Aroma was heavy with dark bread dough, malt, molasses, and dark, ripe fruit. Color is opaque black on black. Flavor is a slammer - with all of the aroma components plus a bit of roastiness, big sweet - bitter - sweet alternations and a real strong booziness. Really tastes like it has been spiked with some booze - hard to say which. Very strong alcohol finish with a little bittersweet highlight. Not a session beer.