Avery The Beast Grand Cru Ale

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

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.

Thanks Strykzone for this fascinating brew. From a 12 oz bottle this four year old (2005 bottling) poured a very dark brown with a large bubbled tan head and good lacing rings. You can smell this from six feet away with a big nose of fermented raisins, and alcohol. Mouthfeel is slick and oily and the body is fairly heavy. The flavor is more like Creme Sherry than beer and the finish is surprisingly mild considering the high alcohol content. A very unique and quite remarkable beer. You sip this one, and it was enjoyable from start to finish.

18.1% version. Pours dark amber/ruby with no head. Aroma is heavy sweet malt/candy sugar with alcohol detectable. Flavor is sweet sugar with a big alcohol burn. Very little yeast character for a Belgian. Warmer it gets, the more the alcohol flavor comes through. Can’t believe I drank this as a night cap on Superbowl Sunday, on top of 5 or 6 other big brews and some jagerbombs. Ouch!!

Bottle from the beer depot, ann arbour, purchased march 06. Pours murky dark cafe mocha colour, with a thin skin of cream coloured fizz. huge molasses and chocolate aroma with lots of spices and an assault of alcohol and lactic/milkyness. Flavours are like a mix of molasses with some beer and spices add in. There are some milk chocolate flavours here, and some lactic acidiity as well,but it’s way to unbalanced to really be enjoyable, even for sipping. After I drank this, I was sick as a fucking dog and had the worst hangover of my life, and I even shared it. Never again.

(Bottle, thanks Jugge) Pours amber/red. Sweet malty aroma with some toffee. Plums and raisins with heavy (exotic) fruits. Peppery alcohol. Small hints of mazipan, spices and honey. Very sweet flavour with Sugar/molasses and some alcohol. Medium bitter mouthfeel. Not to complex, but really good.

Bottle batch 2. The first thing I noticed was the alcohol smell. I was expecting it to be quite detectable, but it is quite overwhelming. It poured a brownish-orange hue and had a generally appealing appearance. When I brought the glass to my mouth my nose was assaulted with more alcohol. Any faint sweet notes are quickly pummeled by the alcohol. The finish is not too far from that of a shot of sweet whisky.

12oz bottle from PP bottle shop: $10! ($8.50 at Bevmo, but have to be nice to PP, because they are nice to me). Batch 6. Nice malty aroma. A hint of yeast, possibly a small hint of autolysis. Pours cold with red amber color and a small small bubble off-white ring around the edge of the glass. Taste is sweet. A bit of alcohol burn. Taste is sweet and very medicinal, probably because of the high ABV. A little vinous too, possibly because of the high ABV and possibly because of the raisins. The Belgian yeast notes are subtle hidden under the alcohol. Beers of this magnitude are rarely easy to drink more than a few sips. I can’t help but wonder what 3 or ten years of age would do to this? Dave is incredible after 10+ years, but I’ve heard it was undrinkable for many years. Oh well, at least it’s another >10% rating.

2006 bottle. Whew what a strong beer. This took forever for it to warm up for me, but when it did it was great. Very dark ruby color with a head that stays. Flavor is a little too sweet but good. Can taste the high ABV. Lots of candy used. Good brew but not worth the $.