Avery The Beast Grand Cru Ale

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

2006 bottle. This is one very complex beer, made with several types of sugars and grains, and 6 varieties of hops. I am surprised it does not score higher, but it is unusual and appears to irritate some raters. There is a powerful vinous, alcoholic aroma. Some ruby color when one looks closely. The flavor is astonishingly rich and complex. Cherry, raisin, prune, orange, coffee, and hops. Dave says you should let it sit and massage your tongue for a bit. This brew has him doing tongue exercises. The hops come in, but not too hard, and the aftertaste is a pleasant tingle. This is similar to a port or a brandy, but contains no grapes and is not syrupy. It is definitely a dessert beer. The Beast is an awesome product, and worth the high price from time to time. I would have scored it even higher, but it lost a few points on the alcoholic aroma and excessive sweetness.

2006 bottle. Foggy orange pour that creates a tan head that sits quite nicely for a long time. The first thing that you notice on the nose is the alcohol presence. LOADS of sweet notes follow with honey and sweetbread. Very thick feel as you mull this one over. "Intense" does not even begin to give the proper credence to this. Alcohol flavor is there but the most striking feature is the complexity of the sweetness. Incredible amounts of sweet flavors from honey, to molasses, to sweetbread. This sweet flavor is felt for minutes upon minutes, almost causing a knee-jerk reaction. This was quite an experience. Having aged for 3 years, it developed quite an attitude.

I hate it. This thing needs lots of time to chill out. Hot raisin mess. Some sweetness with booze. Straight up rubbing alcohol.

2005 (batch 3) bottle. Darker plum color with a medium head. Aroma is huge and sweet with various dark fruits - raisins, plums, dates, along with loads of brown sugar and buckwheat honey. Flavor is basically as advertised with the aroma with the addition of more sugar, some alcohol, and a bit of bread. Overall nice - more barleywine than Belgian, but its pretty good no matter what its called.

Reddish pour with white head. Active carbonation. Aroma of oranges, nuts, tofee, brown sugar, honey, dried fruits, caramel. Flavor is very sweet and booze, though not as bad as I was led to believe. Mandarin oranges, maraschino cherries, burnt sugar with warming alcohol in the back of the throat. Chewy palate. Pretty good.

The 2005 vintage has been aging quietly in my cellar for the past few year. I was incorporating some new brews into my cellar recently and decided it was time to give this one a try. Pours a cloudy, nearly opaque, orange brown with a slim white head that faded fast. The nose is amazing, raisins, brown sugar, honey, sweet/sticky fruits, slight booze, caramel, orange. Flavor is very sweet, caramel, toffee, with citrus, some booze, and this delicious, shoe leather like earthiness. Thick and sticky in the mouth on the finish. I wish I had a case of this. Delicious and well aged. Probably peaking.

Batch 4. Pours light brown with a thin fizzy head. Smells boozy with some dark fruity hints. Tastes of booze, tea and fruity with a lot of sweetness on the finish. An unbalanced mess.

22 oz. bottle Batch 2 shared by Tmoney99. Pours a hazy amber color with a small rapidly diminishing off white head. The aroma is heavy on the malts, caramel, fruity, resiny, citrus, and some alcohol. The flavor opens with a big dose of caramel/toffee sweetness, smooth,fruity, still with strong alcohol. The alcohol is not the burning rubbing alcohol sensation I remember from a couple of years ago, but something slightly more mellow. I think this one can still develop further and look forward to revisiting this in another year.