Avery The Reverend

Bottle. Average frothy head that dissapated after a minute. Murky amber color. Aroma is malty and caramelly. First reaction is sweet, candy sweet. A good beer but not the best. Enjoyable aftertaste.

Considering the times, and the modern academic climate, I’m surprised anybody was brave enough to name their beer with a word from a Christian glossary. Secularists, which are many on my campus, would have some knee-jerk reaction like they to do everything else and condemn it as backward and stultifying, while the Evangelical base would likely have at it as blasphemous. Whether or not it really is a artifice of a primitive theological past, or a pagan misrepresentation of the church, the beer itself, and whether it is named the Reverend, the Priest, the Cardinal, the Bishop, the Pastor, the Abbot, the Imam, the Rabbi, the Pope, the Conduit, the Preacher or the Witchdoctor, it’s pretty darn good. A poofy, Papal white head looms from the top of the glass, with a deep bronze body, clear as a lense. The smell is absolutely in bloom, filling the air with a spiritual concoction of aromas. Apple, fall foliage, pumpkin, cinnamon, hops, rust (iron), and yam make a decidedly august and August smell. The taste immediately strikes me as very deep and thick, with a quicksand quality. It begins sweet with malts chocolate notes and pine resin, creating a stickiness worthy of taffy manufacturers. The welcoming sweets soon fade, replaced with a clearer hops burn that goes some way in tearing off the former sugary vestiges. Then the Reverend moves into the aftertaste, selecting caramel, burnt wood and an initial pine syrup to end with an ambiguous combination of sweet and smoky. My main complaint is registered against the palate. Despite the taste being deep and sticky, the Reverend retains a quality that makes it feel a tad bit thin and wan on the tongue. That, and in this tissue thin palate there’s a whole deluge of alcohol. Those isolated qualities are distracting enough, but they’re about as appropriate for the flavor as a techno dance party at a funeral. The thin and boozy mouth feel simply doesn’t mesh with the full and wholesome flavors. It is something of a blasphemy, and no amount of spiritual reconciliation (for the beer or for the drinker) is likely to remedy it. If you can overlook the very un-Christian qualities of deceptive thinness and rapacious alcohol, then maybe you too will make a conversion under the watchful gaze of the Reverend – certainly one of the better offerings from Avery.

Beautiful red-copper color. Aroma and flavor predominantly of spice. A bit of sweetness to round it out. But a cut below the respected better belgian style ales.

I must confess surpise at the mere 86th percentile at time of rating... perhaps I stumbled onto a bottle from an exceptionally excellent batch. 22 ounce bomber. Pours with a startling coppery-apricot color that I’ve never before encountered. Crystalline clarity transforms my tulip of ale into an amber fisheye lens. Veritable galaxies of miniscule bubbles race upward, as frenzied and mesmerizing as dancing flame, to join the lumpy foam that pings like hail on a tin roof. (The second pour produces an enchanting snowglobe of floaties.) A mouthwatering menagerie of melding smells… candied citrus, spiced carrotcake, peach, bubblegum, banana, pungent Szechuan peppercorns, vanilla malt, lychee, freshly-turned earth, crushed blackberries, musky livestock, licorice, grape soda… the mind reels to contemplate it, and I have yet to taste! Although less complex, each epiphanous sip proves more harmonious than the almost cacophanous aromatics, displaying intense-but-not-cloying date sweetness, resiney pine exudations, cloves and candycanes, cognac and candy corn, and gingery, gum-numbing ethanolic heat. This elixir finishes with a haymaker wallop of cherry, yeast, and peppery smoke. As my first glass nears emptiness, I goggle at the foam clinging like a wet teeshirt to a coed primed with two dixie cups of white zinfandel from a box. Ironically parallel to that analogy, befitting brain-pickling alcoholic strength asserts itself halfway through the second glass; my addled mind struggles for words, and my unfeeling fingers record nonsensical glyphs and mystical (ha!) runes. Touche, Reverend! Absolutely decadent palate: thick, smooth and rich as whipped butter, soft as down, and creamy as lotion. Unbelieveable! The aftertaste is more of a sensation; a bittersweet back-of-throat burn, actually quite warming and pleasant. Surprising and equally memorable, a lingering retronasal afterscent exerts itself, perfumey and lavender-y… reminds me of a stripper I knew way back when. Cue harp music. Excuse me now, as I sink into a stuporous slumber of erotic dreams.

22 oz bottle, via X-mas 2006 SecretSanta. Pours a clear dark copper under an extremely thin and fizzy light beige head that vanished immediately. Are we sure that this is a Quad? Aroma is of syrupy thick toffee and caramel malt with a good amount of alcohol. A little vanilla, some light fruitiness, and brown and candi sugars. Flavor is just downright crazy for a Quad. Sweet toffee maltiness with lots of alcohol and browm sugar. I guess that there’s a little fruitiness, but not the dark fruits I expect, more of a peachy flavor. A notable missing component is the yeast. Mouthfeel is thick and syrupy with a cloying stickiness. Carbonation is moderate, prickly, and fizzy. I dare anyone to try this blind and call it a Quad. It just wouldn’t happen. What the hell is Belgian about this other than the use of candi sugar?

22oz, part of our blind "Better Know a Style: Abt/Quadrupel" tasting, pours small white head that didn’t last long, a clear amber. aroma is nutty, yeasty, cheese, banana, grape, peach, butterscotch, and maple syrup. flavor is pretty sweet, with notes of banana, peach, and plum. alcohol in the finish. finished second to last out of 9.

Pours clear bronze with a soapy tan head. The aroma has lots of candi sugar, toffee, caramel and Belgium funk - it somes off as a sweet barley wine with a Belgium twist. Thick sticky body with carbonation that is fairly soft. The taste starts sweet and malty with brown sugar, mollases, and light Belgium funk - quite cloying. The finish is still sweet, but not as much so. There’s more of an earthy and spicy side mixed in with the sweetness. For the first third of the bottle this comes off more as a Barleywine than a Quad. Then the rest of the way down the bottle it starts having more of a Belgium earthiness and the brown sugar starts resembling the Belgium candi sugar more giving it a Belgium taste, but more of a Belgium strong ale than a quad. If you go into this looking for an enjoyable strong ale instead of a true quad you should be happy with it, especially for the price.

Bottle. Pours clear, copper-brown, with a thin head that took some aggressive pouring to develop. Fruity, alcohol and even a bit of cinnamon in the aroma. Oliy body and a smooth heavy body mouth feel. A bit sweet and the taste lingers a bit too long.