Avery The Beast Grand Cru Ale

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

12oz, Bottled in 2005. I’ve got a Batch 2 Bomber, but I refuse to drink her yet. This pours a slightly hazy reddish brown with a ring of small beige bubbles. Aroma of raisins, sour cherries, honey, vanilla, misc spices, and fairly vinous. Bone dry finish. Very syrupy body, lighter carbonation. Very port wine-like. Flavor is very sweet with all of the aforementioned aromas. This is a carbonated port wine, as far as I’m concerned, and I happen to like port wines, but I don’t believe those should be consumed in more than 2oz. Due to the sweetness of this brew, I might stand by that same rule for this one. This doesn’t seem Belgian at all to me. Update--having this a year later, and another 12ozer of Batch 3, and it’s much the same. It might be slightly mellower, but I can still tell its strong. And again, 12oz is enough for 4 people.

batch 3. spice. sugar and beasty wildness a little sour. dark kind brown with red tint. small head. sweet bitter sour spicy sticky. this shit awesome it. expect its too fucking sweet.

Dark amber pour with a minimal tan head. Port, malt, spun sugar, and dark fruits make up the aroma. Heavy taste. Thick with sugar, yeast, and malts up front that glides into a sherry and finally ends with a hop bitterness. Sticky, lingering mouthfeel and aftertaste. Gets better as it warms. Very good, just wish it was not $8 for a 12 oz bottle.

An incredibly sweet beer. Strong but not over-hopped, it certainly does not remind one of most beers of this style. Still. It’s good stuff.

About all this beer had going for it was the appearnace, which was hazy reddish-orange with good brown head and excellent lacing. Unfortunately, looks ain’t everything. This was so incredibly sweet, in both the nose and taste, that it overwhelmed everything else. I kept sipping it slowly as it warmed, hoping that something else would pop through, even the alcohol, to tame the sweet, but to no avail. It was like drinking a bottle of Karo Syrup, without the corn flavor. This ended up being one of the 3 or 4 on my ratings list which I have drained-poured before finishing. Sorry, but this crap was really nasty.

This is one dark amber coloured beer. Despite it being almost perfectly translucent, it’s dark eough you can’t see through it well. There’s a semi large head on the pour, but it doesn’t stay. Fruit, fruit, and more fruit in the aroma. Some citrus peaks through, but there are a ton of date/rasian like flavours in there. This is hugely sticky and thick, sugary almost. Which doesn’t surprise me as this is probably the sweetest beer i’ve ever had. The hops are non-existent, which surprises me considering the large hop bill. I was excited to try this, but think it’s just a bit much for me. At $8.00 a bottle, i don’t think I’ll be sticking any of this into the cellar to see if it mellows a bit.

The pour is a clear deep copper color with a tan head that quickly fades and leaves no lace on the glass. Nose is huge sweet fruit – raisins, dates, and plums - with a bit of caramel mixed in. Alcohol is definitely present in the aroma as well. The palate is heavy and sticky, almost chewy on the tongue with barely any carbonation. The first taste was sweet candy covered fruit that covered the slightly spicy finish. The label boast of Magnum, Galena, Saaz, Hallertau, Tettnang, and Hersbrucker hops, they must all be covered by the tons of malt – but then I guess that’s the point with this beer.

I had a taste at the Stone Brew festival 2006. I’m sorry but this was a nasty beer, it was ridiculously sweet and strong. Flavors were all over the place, just wasn’t my kind of brew.