Avery Out of Bounds Stout

Bottle. 12 fl. oz. Black beer with frothy, tan head and good lacing. Roasted malt aroma of coffee grinds and chocolate. Nice, smooth, full bodied mouthfeel with a dry finish. Flavor is light sweet with a heavy bitter end.

12 0z bottle. First a musty then a roasty chocolate coffee smell. Pour is dark and opaque. Inspired, good dark beer impact. Not a really hard hitter but it does have a gallant back of throat burnt impact. carbonation is very good for this type of beer. Overall, not as good as Bell’s Kalamazoo or Yards Love Stout. Better than Old Dominion and Youngs Double Chocolate. Bitter chocolate interesting initial input but develops into an almost distrustful bitter finish, nearly impy. Repeat, good carbonation on the palate. IMHO this makes for a better beer over similar beers that are flat.

I’m not sure if I got a bad bottle of this or not. It had an extremely old, sour coffee aroma and taste to it that seemed off. At this point I can’t recommend this, but I’m hoping it was just a fluke. Avery products haven’t let me down yet, so I’ll pick up another bottle some other time and rerate.

Perhaps I did this beer a diservice by trying it after my first Lion Stout (which I was very impressed by). It struck me as occupying a weird middle ground - its flavor was neither sweet nor exceptionally dry. Depending what kind of stout I’m in the mood for (roasty or sweet) I could find better examples of both. This beer satisfies a need for stouts I just don’t have. This beer pours an attractive inky black with lots of fluffy white head that fades on the surface of the liquid, but clings aggressively to the glass. Aroma is very lightly sweet and roasted, like coffee with condensed milk in it. Flavor is rather roasty, but occupies an unsatisfying ground that is neither exceptionally dry and roasty (no "burned pizza crust") nor sweet like the aroma would indicate. Mouthfeel is not bad, but just a bit watery up front. Not bad, but not great.

A very good Stout. Dark in color and rich in taste. Molassas, figs and chocolate. Also coffee and carmel can be detected. Nice head and lacing. Just a little dry which adds to the experence.

12-oz. Thanks, Maria! My "beerwife." :-) Pours opaque black with a thick, moussy tan head that fall to nothing but a bit of spotty lacing after a minute or two. Kind of a one dimensional nose, just some roastiness and chocolate, mostly the chocolate. Medium sized attack: medium body, medium carb, and some roast and a bit of malty choco-sweetness there. Super ashy hollow finish that way shadow the spicy hops, such as there are. Surprisingly unbalanced--or is it otherwise timid--for an Avery. Yummy enough and this’d probably be an occasional session beast if it was on tap down the street, but I probably wouldn’t even drive across town for this.

Very bitter, very roasted, fairly sour, and fairly hoppy. Somewhat dry. The texture is odd...like it’s trying to be creamy and smooth in texture, but the flavour has far too much bite to it for that to really work. The sourness, although masked by the roast and the bitterness, is strong and noticeable, and makes this beer less unenjoyable. I also want to add that while I generally like bitterness, I found the bitter aftertaste of this beer to be quite objectionable. I did not finish it.

Bottle. Black with huge beige head. Hops, coffee, cocoa and caramel in the aroma. Dry and bitter mouthfeel. A little watery. An okay dry stout, but it lacks complexity.