Avery The Beast Grand Cru Ale

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

Rating #666! 22oz bottle, batch 2 - Pours ruby and mostly clear as most of the yeast stuck to the bottom of the bottle. There’s a very thin head. The aroma is of oak, malts, and alcohol. Sweet malt flavors are accented by some dark fruit tones and alcohol warmth. At over 18% abv, one can’t help but feel it even though the three years of aging seems to have toned down the heat a bit as I expected it to be even hotter on the palate. This one is definitely a sipper and it’s a good one. It didn’t taste quite as complex as I expected. While it was enjoyable, I think one of the batches around 15% abv might be a little better.

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.

Sampled from a 12 oz brown bottle this beer poured a ruby chestnut color with a large tan head. The aroma was sweet, fruity, caramel and molasses. The flavor was sweet caramel, ripe fruits - cherry mostly, molasses and port wine. Very complex. Wonderfully thick and sweet. The alcohol did show through a noticeable amount. I liked this one. My wife thought it was a total beergasm and wanted to give it a perfect rating.

2004 bottling. Powerful, sweet, malty, estery aroma, alcohol very nicely apparent, quite complex and appealing with notes of light brown sugar, faint banana, toffee, plum, red grape, milk chocolate, lightly spicy hop, some dark breadiness and a faint oddly sourish tinge, all in all quite rich. Deep amber hue, reddish copper with a fine, creamy head and very thin lacing. Flavor profile is daunting, mighty, strongly sweet and fruity but bitter and alcoholic to balance. Begins sweet and sugary, becoming fruity and alcoholic, warming, intense and peppery with a moderately high amount of bitterness and some light cocoa and raisin on the finish. Made with Belgian ingredients in America but is closest in my experience thus far to a German Eisbock. Palate is thick, sticky and warming. Full bodied in the extreme with an Original Gravity of 1.130... Feels every bit of its nearly 16% alcohol content. Huge to be sure but not overwhelming, really. Certainly not cloying or unbalanced. Nevertheless I must echo sentiments that suggest 3-5 years in the cellar for this Beast. Really fantastic and obviously made for the true beer connoisseur who craves more.

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

Bottle (Cantillon Open Brewing Day): Alcohol, prunes, figs raisins and sweet berries in the nose. Grainy biscuits, grassy hops, hot chocolate and estery spices. Smooth warming body. Tasty.

12oz bottle batch 4 2006. Cloudy dark brown in color with a ruby hue. Well coated lacing was left on the glass. Big nose of alcohol, candied fruits, molasses and brown sugar. Tasted much more like a Barley Wine opposed to a Belgian Strong Ale.

Dark orange-red raped amber blending to brown, topping off in light tan lather, and emitting yeasty aromas surrounded by notes of apricot and peach with a subtle spicing underneath and with a funky meatiness to it. Yeasty flavors with severe alcohol heat and huge hoppiness too. This is a huge, hot beer with big big bitterness and gigantic yeasty and malty flavors..large mouthfeel with alcohol and hops tending to get a tad harsh in the throat.