Avery The Beast Grand Cru Ale

Batch 5 (2007): Cellared for 12 months. Pours a DARK amber, with a massive, slick, frothy ivory head. Very nice looking beer. Aroma is excellent and complex...heavy pit fruit, dates, port and strawberry, with just a touch of alcohol. Flavor is extra sweet, malt, brown sugar, and port. Palate is light/med bodied, slightly fizzy. Overall this was an interesting brew, but too sweet for my tastes. Would make a fantastic after-dinner alternative to brandy, port or scotch. The sweetness and richness of this beer is a bit much for one person. Can probably be shared amongst a couple.

Bottle batch 4. Red/brown clear body, with a small off-white head. Aroma i dark fruits, especially raisins, caramel, yeast and alcohol. Flavor is dark fruits, brown sugar/caramel, sweet malt and alcohol. This is a very very nice beer. I love it.

Aroma hits the nose as soon as the bottle I opened, before I even pour it into the glass. Extremely enticing aroma of appleas, dark fruits, bread yeast, malts, spices, and strong alcohol. Smell of honey present after a minute or so as well. The appearance is very murky brown, very thin off-white head. The flavor is very sweet and fruity up front, honey, brown sugar, almost like a marinade. The finish is strictly an alcohol burn, which lingers in the whole mouthand is overall enjoyable. Very little in the way of hops. This really strikes me as more of a barley wine. Very enjoyable. The alcohol lends an enjoyable quality to the taste and aroma of this beer, and is not at all overpowering, as it was for the Mephistopheles).

Batch 5 bottle at my 1000 Rates Celebratory tasting, bought at Ølbutikken in September 2008 and shared with Mes and tashi. Smells of salt & vinegar crisps, in a really good way! (turns to just malt) Wow, barley wine, to the max. The full court press from the malt, lots of warmth, a sweet aroma. However, the elephant in the room is the alcohol content. It swamps the flavours, compared to say JW Lees Harvest Ale. It doesn’t keep giving new flavours in the way that I feel that the brewer could have achieved the same with 9 or 10%. A very American beer - big is better.

2004 (18.1%) bottle. Pours clear reddish amber with little off white head. The aroma involves some sweet tobacco, plums, apricots, perfume, caramel, raisins, and honey. The flavor is not as complex as I’d expected, but good - sweet malt like crazy, ginger, honey, alcohol, caramel, and malt bitterness. The mouthfeel is moderate and warming. Overall this is a ridiculously big beer that is very good when shared with many people.

A Mes rate. Bottle thanks hugely to Casper. A lovely pale amber brown colour with a good beige head. A totally bonkers smell of salt and vinegar crisps. Huge, almost sickly, malt and obviously some alcohol but not as hardcore as you would expect. Jesus Christ this is a glorious tasting beer. It’s a barley wine with some serious knobs on. Massive malty hit, gorgeous chewy alcohol, huuuuge hop complexity, slight card and a fantastic caramel and bitter finish. The flavours are utterly fantastic but the alcohol kills it far too much. Although it’s hugely complex, it would benefit so much from a little restraint. I know that’s not what it’s about but I don’t think it deserves any plus points from being labelled acurately. Cut the abv in half and this has incredible depth and barrel loads of excitement. As it is, it’s just an over the top booze fest. Very good indeed but a far cry from the journey you get from a JW Lees harvest or a Westy. To sum it all up, amazing stuff, could be even better.

Batch 6, 2008 bottle. Poured a nice amber color with nittle head. Aroma was HUGE malt. You had to pick your way through the malt to get to the underlying smells but there were some nice hints of fruit, molasses, some cherry, some good yeast phenols. . . there was a lot going on here. Unfortunately a little of that got killed in the flavor because of the alcohol. The burn from the alcohol killed a little of the subtle flavor of this beer. It was not as bad after a few sips, but the first impression was pure boozy. Mouth feel was super thick.

Wow. Amber pour with a half-inch off-white head. Big malty nose with a spicy, floral character. Rich and complex flavors of dark fruits, sugar, honey, molasses and tons of other sweet things. Big alcohol bite. Great beer.