Avery Thirteen

Formerly brewed at Avery Brewing Company
Style: Weizen Bock
Boulder, Colorado USA

Dark ruby with a firm off-white head. Complex aroma featuring figs and dates, licorice and molasses, and some bready munich maltiness. Sweet and fruity flavour, vineous and thick. Licorice and malt in a dry finish. The alcohol feeling falls somewhere between warming and burning. I suppose this is my first wheat wine

Bottle from Super Saver. Dark brown/ruby pour with minimal head. The aroma is big banana, roasty charred malts, some brown sugar, nuts, bazooka. One of the biggest banana smells of all time here, folks! The taste is roasty burnt malts with a lot of figs, banana, some brown sugar and chocolate, and some nutmeg. It never gets sweet and stays on the dry side of the scale, and the palate is on the dense end and gets a tad hot as it warms. There is a slight discombobulation of the flavors in this as I get to the last dregs that forces a minor deduction. Not bad, but Avery has set the bar so high that this one let me down a bit. Still, a nice rendition of a style that we really need to see more of.

A dark clear brown bock with a thin off white head. A sweet banana aroma, with licorice, maple and alcohol. In mouth, a rather striking licorice, sweet candy malt with caramel, burned roasted notes, a bit of alcohol and lactic acids. Rich and intense. Tasted April 2007.

Bottle (bomber). Head is initially small, frothy, light brown, mostly lasting. Body is hazy dark brown. Aroma is moderately malty (cookie, chocolate, toasted bread, caramel), lightly yeasty (cobwebs), with notes of plum, raisin, date, light notes of apple, banana and alcohol, hint of clove. Flavor is moderately to heavily sweet, lightly to moderately acidic, lightly bitter. Finish is moderately sweet, lightly to moderately acidic, moderately bitter. Medium to full body, watery/velvety texture, lively carbonation, lightly to moderately alcoholic. Malty-fruity nose with the Avery thumbprint all over it, but falls a little short of the banana-clove punch I was hoping for. This is leaning more towards a straight Doppelbock to me than a Weizenbock, but that nitpick aside, it is unquestionably enjoyable. Delectable attic-like/cobwebby raw yeast smell underneath it all (delightfully devoid of vitamin B / dough smell). Great balance that is neither too sweet nor too bitter...but just a touch more tartness would be welcomed for this style. Rich, luxurious mouthfeel with fairly well-hidden alcohol. Nicely retentive head, though certainly not as voluminous as some (though this is a fresh-off-the-bottling-line, semi-agitated, low-fill bottle, so this unfiltered gem might improve on that point in a few weeks/months). A very strong contender in Avery’s arsenal and my favorite of the anniversary beers so far.

Bottle. Creamy off-white good mostly lasting head. Dark red-amber colour. Powerfull malty and hoppy aroma. Hefe not dominating. Moderate bitter flavor. Very caramellic. Moderate bitter long finish. Fantastic creamy palate.

22 oz bottle from some unremembered store in the midwest, October 2006; sampled at cellar temperature from a Ramstein weizen glass. One of those creamy, perfectly flat/smooth tan heads tops this dark caramel/walnut near-opaque monster; it dies slowly and leaves thick lacing.....fairly pleasant but unremarkable caramel-banana aroma with a fair bit of doughy yeasty character, kind of pasty and thick....smooth yet assertive body, lots of caramel and light yeast character but also plenty of sourdough notes adding a vinegary agressiveness to it all, touches of cherry and chocolate, quite full and naturally carbonated; alcohol is vaguely present but nicely muted, banana-clove notes also noticeable but never overwhelming....dark chocolaty touches near the finish help cut the doughiness of the yeast.....this is one of the more authentic American weizens of any stripe that I’ve had and certainly deserves credit for that; quite solid.

Very dark brown body with some ruby highlights at the edge. The head is yellowish khaki. The aroma is chocolate covered cherries with some cough syrup. There is some honey character. The taste is milk chocolate with some light prunes in the background. There is some noticeable alcohol in the cough syrup finish. Something I expect from Avery. Man, this is a biig beer that slaps you in the face.

Burnet caramel, alcohol, marzipan, some floral notes and vinous fruits in the salty aroma. Clear, dark, mahogany brown body is topped by a low tan head that recedes to cover. Sweet flavour has plenty of nutty marzipan, dark pit fruits, molasses, caramel and alcohol. Some dark malt bitterness in the finish. Medium body with low carbonation and strong alcohol warming. Bottle sampled with BeerPrince, CapFlu, frink and Oakes.