Avery The Beast Grand Cru Ale

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

Bottle. This is insanity. 14,9%. Red and brownish in colour with almost no head. Not for the timid. Sweet - prunes - raisins - figs and very alcoholic.

2004 bottle. Reddish amber out of the bottle with a short lived tan bubbly head. Candi sugar nose with a note of sour. Lots of dark, dry fruit in this beer along with burnt caramel sugars and molassass. Syrupy mouthfeel with a strong alcohol burn. Very strong beer, but tastey none the less.

2004 vintage. Orange and clear in color with no head. Little carbonation. Sweet candi aroma. Malty flavor. Sweet and ridiculous. Needs to age.

2004 vintage: Clear, speckled cedar. Dwindling light tan head. Luxurious aroma crammed with juicy noble hops, dried tropical fruits, dessert apples, varnish, fig juice, and honey. Bronzy alcohol underlain with candied malts, star anise, and a twinge of rounded Belgian yeast. Dense mouthfeel, yet so velvety and creamy. Mild notes of medicine couple with extremely ripe tropical fruits up front. Citric rind bitterness heightens at the core and thrashes through the chewy body, unleashing a leathery malt fury to keep it from becoming a hop massacre. The hop immensity is stifled by plump fruits and cleaned-up with peppery alcohol. Finishes with restrained esters, fruity yeast, and a tolerable level of medicine. Lingers with anise, papaya seed, and starfruit notes mixed with leather, raisin, and firm yet vaguely sweet malts. In hindsight, the aroma is too (typically) yeasty for the style and the alcohol hides the complexity. This is much-improved at cellar temp., as the sweetness becomes a bit overbearing as it warms. With that said, there’s plenty of estery goodness to go along an unfathomable, and almost-exclusive, noble hop bill. An elegant beast, if there ever was one. This ought to be a dream-come-true after a few good years in the cellar. Original rating: 4.2

All subsequent bottlings have been subpar, i.e. overly sweet, fusel, medicinal, underattenuated, you name it.

Yikes! What a beer! Definitely the biggest most pungent and robust nose on a beer I’ve ever had. Super rich with brandy/vinuous notes, coconut rum, dark fruits, banana, burnt sugar, alcohols. Mostly sweet but surprisingly not cloying, big on fruits and burnt sugar, some spicy hops. Lightly carbonated but still smooth and easy on the palate, almost slick, certainly heavy bodied. Slight alcohol burn in the finish, pretty well balanced for the strength. Dark amber color, no head. Lingering chest warming.

This was a treat to myself on Halloween. Pours deep reddish amber with a rich rocky tan head. The aroma is sweet and caramely with a lot going on. Picking up musty malt, tons of richness, some alcohol, molasses, dark fruits. A lot is going on. Thick slick body that glides down. This is definitely as sipper. Taste starts with sweetness that has honey, brown sugar, dates, raisins, a ton of candi sugar and some alcohol burn. The finish has some alcohol burn with the boatload of sweetness. Belgium earthiness starts coming out further down the glass. This strikes me a Belgium made American style Barleywine. Good beer, but don’t know how often I would want it.

Bottle Batch 3: Poured a reddish brown, thin off white head. Aroma is sweet with sugar, fruit, and malts. Taste is strong molasses malt with off setting hops. The finish is sweet and alcoholy.

Dark amber colour with small head.Aroma is sweet fruity most like dark dry fruits with real heavy alc.Sweet mouthfeels and strong finish.