Avery Samaels Oak-Aged Ale

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

12 oz bottle from bottletrek.com. 2006 batch 2. Pours reddish brown. Very sweet and very rich in flavor. Oak is noticeable along with cherries and vanilla and caramel malt. Somewhat complex, rich, yet smooth. Alcohol is noticeable, but I surprised to see that it was 14.9%. I really enjoyed sipping this one.

Batch 3 bottle. Pours a murky reddish brown, looks real thick coming out of the bottle. Dense, slow-moving, off-white appears after some rousing. Initial aroma is alcohol and wood, in that order. As it warms, raisins and plums, and a hint of spice (anise?) come out in the aroma. The alcohol does’t overpower the taste as much as it seems it should. Very sweet taste but the alcohol and spice and vanilla characters complement the sweetness. Lots of plum and raisin in the taste, with a very warm finish. Better than I had anticipated.

Thin yellowish beige head. Hazy light amber body with carbonation. Sugary malty musty aroma with notes of cabbage and alcohol. Dry-sweet malt and vomit taste with fruity chocolate and cabbage notes. Lots of alcohol heat. Somehow this violently disagreed with me. My tasting notes end "HATED IT! DIE, YOU BAD BEER!" which bespeaks a certain dissatisfaction. Would like to rerate to verify that I really do hate it this badly. (0.355l bottle at Knut Albert’s.)

Bottle. Sweet, sugary aroma is nothing but caramel and a bit of casky wood. Well, some alcohol. Clear amber-brown body with aggressive but short-lived carbonation culminating in a scant beige head. Sugary taste, huge alcohol burn all the way through, with a kind of cloying syrupiness and a tea-leaf and musty herb quality. Smoothing oaky edges. Complexity is highly overrated here, and as this is pure firewater, the actual flavor and complexity is blunted and marginalized by the overkill. A gum-number with an obese body and a dry, burning, alcoholic aftertaste. Seems having a mad scientist at the helm isn’t such a good thing after all.

Bottle: Poured a reddish clear brown with little to no white color head. The aroma is very sweet with caramel malt. The taste is a sweet but very tingly with alcohol caramel. Finish is very warm and vanilla.

This was the last of the Avery trio for me to try, having already had Mephistopheles and The Beast), and I thought it somewhere between the other two. I’m not sure there’s any merit in evaluating these three on a "true to style" basis, as I’m pretty sure part of Avery’s intent in launching these beers is to "bend" some styles. On a purely "tastes good/is easy [or least punishing] to drink" basis, I enjoyed Samael’s considerably more than The Beast, but considerably less than Mephistopheles. The beer a surprisingly bright red color with a pretty well-textured head of fine bubbles that faded rather quickly to a scummy coating. Aroma was definitely extremely caramel-y, but not of the malted-milk ball variety. Flavor was also a lot of caramel maltiness that was not cereal-y and I found to be rather pleasant. I got some vanilla-ness off of the oak, and I also got a lot of spiciness that was reminiscent to me of eggnog. This nutmeg/nogginess was easily the most surprising and enjoying aspect of this beer to me. Mouthfeel was pretty astringent and definitely warming. I thought this beer was pretty good, and was definitely interesting.

2005 Bottle. Poured a reddish brown body with thin head. aroma is oak, carmel, sweet malt, alcohol. Flavor has a heavy sweetness to it, figs, dates, and some oak. Alcohol is noticable and sometimes too rough, sometimes smooth. Decent beer but a little too over the top.

This 2006 pours a clear dark ruby amber color with a small off-white head that sticks around a whole lot longer than you would think with an ABV this high. Aroma is a pleasant sour merlot with some minor notes of molasses. Chewy, rich, sweet, and brandylike; this stuff is truly exceptional. Very complex, yet well balanced in the face of what could be described as a cloying feel.