Avery Samaels Oak-Aged Ale

Brewed by Avery Brewing Company
Style: Barley Wine
Boulder, Colorado USA

[944-20071207] 12floz (Vintage 2007 Batch 3). Aroma has a little fruit malt and boozy plant matter. Clear, dark red body with a medium-lasting foamy light tan head. Rich dark toasted malt flavour with a bit of oak yeast notes. Full body is smooth but has a kick to it. Wow, tasty.

2005 vintage. Pours a cloudy caramel color with a small beige head. Aroma of sweet malt, caramel, oak and and vanilla. Taste is sweet with flavors of caramel, oak and vanilla. Very nice barleywine that seems to have aged well.

Golden-amber colour. Strong plasticy alcohol nose. Very candyish...even a hint of raspberry in there amidst the icing sugar sweetness and copious booze. Far too sweet for me.

355 ml bottle, Batch #2 May 2006. Amber color, off-white head. Sweet. Caramel malt, fruits, dried fruits, honey and hops with a bitter finish.

Pours clear amber with an off-white head. Nose of carame, maltl and alcohol. Very sweet flavour of caramel, raisins, apricot and peach with notes of oak. Medium bodied to full bodied. Syrup texture. Ends up sweet and more dry.

Intense aromatics on immediately opening this bottle, huge fruit esters, and plentiful booze bounding out of the glass! Dark orange, edging into crimson, with a big , creamy head that died almost instantly. Aroma: alcohol first, then comes closer whiskey-ish connotations, some vanilla, pungent citrus, pale peach, the crack of a leather whip, the burn of a shot of straight scotch, liquid fire, an orange dipped in gasoline. Taste: Ah! Hot, hot, hot! BAM!, it bites you right off, then slides down, still hard as hell, finally nestling in, and warming your stomach. Fruit flavors abound, peach, orange, juicy malt, always kept company with hot booze, the stomach getting warmer and warmer still. Gets a bit too sweet for a moment, but this is not intended as anything mild, so one shouldn’t fault this ale for being forward. More I drink, more I like, and the easier it is to take. Gets tastier, too, as it becomes more tolerable. Thick, rough and tumble stuff, but rewarding, in it’s way. Definitely a night-cap brew, one to luxuriate the long late night hours away with. Mmmm, this a killer diller, but not impossible to like. Full flavored, full bodied, long, fruity, boozy finish. And wholly unique.

remember seeing this bizarre story in the news? a truck driver from a major candy factory crashed headlong into a nearby glue factory. the resulting inferno took up the century old oak beam structure. what a mess it was. but, after the blaze was extinguished, someone had the presence of mind to sop up some of the sticky, caramelized, phenolic ooze and bottle it. his name is samael, and while he’s under indictment for tampering with a crime scene, his beverage is now available to us, and this resinous, still dangerously flammable oak-butter bears his name. like a liquid candy cane, with caramel and strawberry, it is intensely sweet, with enough honey to fuel every indigent bumble bee from boston to berkeley. so dessert-like, i suggest enjoying samael with a double espresso-- but you’ll want to periodically monitor your heart rate just to be safe. the sheer gravity of samael will put a little extra bulge in your snifter. it drops innocently enough into a glass, showing a buttery baked pineapple bronze color-- and in spite of the roiling turbulence of alcohol--rising like a summer storm cell over texas-- it actually manages a tight little fellowship of foam. the beer has an admirably daring crudeness about it, one can imagine that it might have been based on a recipe found smudged on the wall in a sooty, pre-historic cave. it’s a formula that combines elements for a ceremonial bonfire: it weds volatility and sweetness, it’s a lumber-based lamp oil mixed with caramelized apricot syrup, grains, and for good measure, the gastric juices of a huge, obese honey badger that died of gout. full on the tongue, it etches perfectly configured and sinuous golden rivers of bitterness across the palate like micro-circuits on a memory chip. it’s a heavy fruit brandy, vulgar enough to fart some fusel alcohols in mixed company, refined enough to spin a rococo tapestry of toffee fibers, earthy enough to tell of bitter root tinctures, elevated enough to raise a rocket into space with it’s jet fuel potency. i awoke after dawn back at the scene of the accident-- having run out of bottled samaels-- i was found delirious and licking the curb where he’d long ago collected this hypnotic nectar. next time i may try simply injecting it into my arm-- that’s how much i crave that sweet oak, man.

Pours a ruby hued brown with a finger of creamy light tan head that dies quickly leaving sheets of lace. Smells of sweet bourbon, oak, cherry and malt. Stings the nose. Taste is very sweet. Boozy with a sherry character. The oak chips are prominant. Syrupy and spicy. Full and sticky in the mouth. A gynormous brew that must be sipped spurratically. Would be very interested to revisit one of these after aging a few years as there are many flavors but all buried by the booze.