Avery The Beast Grand Cru Ale

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

Bottle 2005 vintage. Dark golden body with a small off-white head. Aroma is dominated by alcohol like cough medicine (not negative) with fruit and spices. Flavor is sweet dry fruit, sweet malt, hops and spices with alcohol, I’m still getting associations to cough medicine. Complex and quite robust.

Draught from Avery Tap Room. Dark orange to red but also brown with thin tan head. Aroma is sweet syrup hoppy and caramel. Also pure cane sugar-like candy and rich ripe fruit. Little maple syrup and alcohol which is very present. Flavor is boozy and absurdly sweet caramel and maple syrup and molasses, but also candy-like. A little burnt goes sweet booze burn to finish.

Sampled at Binny’s of Glen Ellyn, IL. After Dinner Tasting. Poured to a small snifter a deep, orangy amber, with modest off white foam to the head, and equally modest spots of lacing and clingy liquid to the inside of the glass. The aroma was strong malt and notes of caramel, currants, and candi syrup. The flavor added a hefty dose of hop bitterness to balance the abundant malt, along with strong alcohol, and a hint of woodiness. Quite an impressive, full bodied brew.

Amer Color, thin whitish head. Great honey, some raisin, and a little smoky aroma. Sweet but full flavor. The only problem is a little bit of alcohol-y finish. But a damn good beer!!

2004 bottle of the original batch. I was lucky enough to get it straight from Adam Avery’s cellar while he was visiting St. Louis. Dark brown color with off white head. Sweetich caramel aroma with bitter chocolate . Very rich. It has aged incredibly well and I wish I could have tried it side by side with a newer bottle.

on tap at papago on 12/10/2009... unsure of the vintage. hazy auburn colored pour with a lasting dense near white ring of foam. there’s a pleasant aroma of dates, vanilla, oaky spice, brown sugar and grain underneath a blanket of floral alcohol. the palate is sticky and sweet up front yet alcohol seems to clear it up fairly well. there is a flavor facade of applewine, brown sugar, florals/esters, oaky vanilla, dates, wood and tons of spiciness blocking the massive amount of boozy burn near the finish. full bodied, very hot and cloyingly sweet... rather like drinking a poorly manufactured port . fyi, don’t let the barkeep mix this 50/50 with dfh 120 to ’balance it out’! 7/4/5/2/13/3.1

I’m not a fan of the other Avery demons, but this one works, in a syrupy malt-bomb kind of way. Deep brown pour with a sticky yellow-brown head. Aroma is surprisingly faint, just some caramel and alcohol. First sip identifies it as a malt bomb, primary fig, date, dried fruit flavors up front, transitioning to more sugary flavors, molasses, caramel, toffee, as each sip proceeds. A bit of dust on the finish. Full bodied, syrupy, but not really cloying. Surprisingly, the flavor contains the alcohol content, and it remains sippable throughout. Except that the alcohol kills the palate before the glass was half over, and all I really tasted after that was a brown sugar wine. Beer doing its darnedest to be rum.

2005 vintage. pours deep brown with red highlights. no real head. aroma is sweet fruits, raisins, molasses, a touch of soy, slight chocolate, caramel. chilled there is no alcohol noticable but very concentrated sweetness or dark fruits, sugars, caramel, dates, fig, chocolate, toffee, and a touch of soy. as it warms alcohol comes into the picture a little but not overbearing. drinks very very smooth and the age has done wonders. I think much more time on this vintage would lend more soy oxidation.