Avery Anniversary Fourteen

Formerly brewed at Avery Brewing Company
Style: American Strong Ale
Boulder, Colorado USA

Serve in Snifter, Trappist glass

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Bomber. This beer surprised me and I don’t know why. For some reason I wasn’t expecting much, but I thought this was very tasty! Certainly a dark brown pour with small head. I smelled sweet coffee and molasses. The flavor is sweet and has a chocolaty coffeeish malty thing going on. It seems difficult to ’categorize’ this, there is some porter, some stout, some abbey dubble, with a tad of ipa tossed into the mix. Very tasty indeed!

This basically like a double IIPA with some nice pine notes and some chocolate to smooth it out. Slightly bitter but has a smooth velvety mouth feel and a sticky finish. Nice.

Bomber. The low ratings suprised me quite a bit with this one, I thought it was pretty tasty. The aroma is a little too subtle, but still quite nice. Flavor was very rich and sticky - ranging from chocolate to dried fruits to caramel to smoke to citrus to molasses to....... etc. With some warmth, the palate turned out to be even more enjoyable for me. Can you say an IPA/stout meets a Belgian quad meets an American Strong ale? - quite unique. Nice frothy head - loved the appearance, too. Not for the weak hearted as the alcohol did show through just a bit. Good job Avery, cheers on the your 14th!

Deep brown in color with a tinge of red. Scents of plum, dark carmel, orange zest and citric hops. The palate shows the hops toward the finish. Nice density in the midpalate which showed nice richness leading toward the dry finish.

UPDATED: MAR 2, 2010 2007 22oz. bomber. Served cool room temp into a Duvel glass. Pours medium dark brown with a large light brown head that retains a cap down the glass, and leaves some nice clumps of lacing. Big aroma starts with semi-sweet chocolate chips, heavy molasses, raisins, licorice, caramel, vanilla, a touch of hops and some spice. Flavor is excellent, chocolate, molasses, brown sugar, dark fruits, cherries, some hoppy bitterness, a touch of caramel and toffee, and some spice. Quite complex. Mouthfeel is full with moderate carbonation. Alcohol taste is present, even with two years on the bottle, but it doesn’t surprise me coming from Avery...they never try to hide the alcohol content of their brews, although the alcohol is certainly mellowing over time compared to when I had this fresh. I really love Fourteen, out of the numerous Avery offerings I’ve tried, this is my favorite. Buy it if you can find it!

The bomber decants as half completely opaque purplish brown-black liquid and half tan froth that requires minutes to subside, revealing demented op-art lace. The aroma struggles to combine thick chocolate-cocoa scents with fruity-tart impressions of blueberry, sweet cherry, and grape soda... and a new car/hot vinyl character casts an unwelcome pall. Flavors convey themselves as pure bedlam... one’s tongue is pummelled by bittersweet bakers’ chocolate and concentrated winey Costa Rican coffee, riddled with raisins and soy sauce, and underscored by phenolic clove and plastic tastes. Weirdly uber-thick milky, pasty palate. Some fetid fishty twang in the aftertaste. Promised hops are unable to emerge from this tarpit of a beer. Closer to a poorly designed imperial stout than anything else, the libation smothers the drinker with discombobulating sensory overload. Brutish and sodomizing.

The 22 ounce bottle poured a clear deep garnet colored beverage with an ample rocky tan head that lasted well and left great lacing on the glass. The aroma was packed full of great things to smell like dark, dried fruits, rock candy, floral hops, molasses and aged leather. It has a nice full body with soft carbonation and a smooth creamy texture. The flavor starts out sweet and stays that way through the long finish. There is a slightly harsh alcohol warming in the throat toward the end but I suspect that this would mellow right out if you cellared it for a year or two.

Pours dark, dark brown and thick and chewy and hazy and very, very inviting. The head is frothy but restrained, with some lacing as it fades. Smells like tea and chocolate and caramel, begging you to take a sip. Tastes immediately sweet in a rush of toffee and sweet tea, yet then grows mildly fruity and bitter. The citric hops show up on the moderately bitter, clingy finish, providing a nice balance to the unending malt sweetness. Gets a little much as it warms, but still a nice bottle. (5/1/09)

Pours a deep, dark, nearly opaque garnet-mahogany with a fine, medium desity tan head; just beautiful. Earthy hops aromas with dark fruit and spice alongside sweet caramel malt and molasses. Malt and molasses in the flavor as well--but not sweet--with excellent dry grainy and nutty flavors. Its very finely tuned malt profile which is one of the most interesting aspects of this beer. Flavors of fruit--black plums, candied citrus peel--alongside hints of toffee and smoke. Finishes dry and bitter with a dark, flavorful hops profile. Very nimble mouthfeel that successfully balances out significant alochol and substantial hops bitterness alongside strong roasted malt characteristics. Very unusual--very successful

Hard to peg this, no doubt. A bit too much sweet molasses for me. Yet this is fantastically complex. Is it suped up brown ale or porter or Beligan ale? Who cares? It just rocks.