Avery The Beast Grand Cru Ale

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

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!!

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.

Bottle. 2006 vintage. Pours clear amber with a 2 finger tan head. The nose is dark fruits, candied brown sugar and molasses. The taste is caramel, toffee, ripe fruit, brown sugar and rock candy. Medium mouthfeel. Way overly sweet, but it does hide the ABV. Not something I’d buy again.

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 $.

Wow. I am really glad that I made this the first beer of the night. Very intense. Burgundy orange colored. Very little head. Faint nose- probably the weakest element of this beer. First sips are headbangingly sweet. The mouthfeel almost feels syrupy, but not in a bad way. Lots of that belgian candy for sure. Warming as all get out and fit well for this unseasonably cool Spring evening in Dallas. Yummy.

(on bottle) I could writ up and down about a wonderfull berry-nose and a way-to-cloying taste. But the important thing for me is, that this beer don´t seem to b e able to evolve int a better beer. The seetness is simply too much, even for that volume.

Very sweet, almost too sweet, but warming after a few schlugs, so the sweetness is forgotten. Sticky, Fruity. No head at all. A good beer, well rounded, very interesting, sweet, but good! Thanks to Duane for this beer! Batch 3

(2007 vintage, Bottle at Pikkulintu on 2008-05-15) Amber colour. White medium-sized head. Lots of malts in nose. Alcohol in full-bodied palate. Malts, hops, liquorice and even salty liquorice in taste. Alchol even warms a bit. Some more hops begin to taste when beer is warmer.