Avery The Beast Grand Cru Ale

Brewed by Avery Brewing Company
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Boulder, Colorado USA

Bottle. 2007 batch 5. Mostly sweet aroma with lots of spice and alcohol. Dark fruit as well as some tropical (pineapple?) fruit notes. Pours deep copper with a creamy off-white head. Big boozy flavor. Quite sweet up front with the pineapple notes appearing again. Malty and hoppy in the middle with a aharp alcoholic bite on the finish. Full bodied. Rich and mouth coating. This one’s all over the map.

22 oz bottle, Batch 2 from 2004, 18.1%. Pours a crystal clear dark copper body under a thin head composed of large bubbles that quickly run to a thin ring. The nose is quite alcoholic, as I expected, with a pretty hefty amount of oxidation. Some dark cherry, caramel, dates, figs, and candi sugar. The first sip takes me aback. No way I’m finishing half of this bomber, let alone 22 ounces. Big, huge alcohol and bigger oxidation overlay heaps of risidual sugars. Lots of bitterness on the rocket fuel-esque finish. The mouthfeel is not overly thick, medium to full bodied, but not sticky or cloying. Most likely because of all the ridiculous alcohol actually thins it out some. Kinda like adding paint thinner. Moderate slightly fizzy carbonation. The finish just burns all the way down the esophagus. Overall, this was pretty horrorshow. I can’t believe that Avery thought a 22 ounce serving of this was a good idea.

Pours light amber into snifter with thin, fast-dissipating head. Strong, sweet aroma of dates, raisins, and alcohol. Flavor is intense, syrupy sweet -- I’d have to say cloying. Exploding flavors of assorted sugars; primarily dates, port, and brown sugar. Almost tastes of fruitcake. Hot alcohol finish -- can’t hide that 16.42%. Most definitely not a session beer, not even two. A sipper, but certainly an interesting experiment in pushing the limits of brewing. I’d recommend Samaels over this.

Pours amber with a comforting 1 inch tan head. Carbonation is evident from numerous rocketing bubbles. Lace is cloying and stubborn. Strong notes of caramel, oak, and dark fruits on the nose. Same flavors with much more molasses, candy sugar, toasted malts, subtle green raisin, and alcohol presented on the palate. Avery didn’t even try to disguise the ABV here; it is a clear and present danger. Medium carbonation and full-bodied. A little too sweet for me, but still good nonetheless. Too bad it doesn’t snow in Florida; this beer would be much more inviting under frigid circumstances.

I really wanted to like this beer. This is not the worst beer I’ve ever tasted, because Avery’s ’The Reverend’ takes that distinction. Sweet beyond reckoning, the adjectives have yet to be forged to describe how terrible this beer is. It has a nice label, though. It would be easier to chug sulfured molasses

Batch number three. Poured a reddish brown color that was lighter in color than I had anticipated. Aroma was sweet and dominated by the smell of dark fruit (rasins, dates?). Taste is of dark fruit, caramel, and molasses. Strong, so this must be drank slow. Very good, but not outstanding, to me.

Bottle. Batch 6. Aroma starts with moderate malt notes of cookie, roasted and molasses, moderate hop notes of flowers and orange peel, and light leather for the yeast, with raisin, port and alcohol in the background. Head is small, fizzy/creamy, off-white with fair lacing and is mostly diminishing. Color is reddish brown. Flavor starts and ends heavily sweet with light bitterness in the finish. Palate is full, between creamy and syrupy and has a soft carbonation. It finishes metalic, lightly astringent and moderately alcoholic. The amount of sweetness in this is surprisiing given the alcohol content. I wanted to like this more, but each sip felt like a bit of a chore because of the sweet/syrupy character. I hate say it but this is probably better drunk cold than even slightly warmed.

Batch #5. Red in color with a decent head. Malt and carmel aromas with some prunelike aromas as well. Sweet very sweet malty flavor of candi sugar, raisons, molasses, and prunes. Very thick body. Had again this weekend and the beer had most of the above but was too overly sweet in the taste and not really that pleasing to me.