Avery The Maharaja Imperial India Pale Ale

There’s something so smooth about a premium IPA. I picked up a couple of these to enjoy with guests. It pours an amber color with a nice but dissipating head and plenty of lace. Bit grapefruit, floral, and hop aroma. The mouthfeel is what first communicates that this is a superior beer. It’s more full and creamy than most IPAs. Very strong malt. Tastes of bread, pine, and citrus. Nice, oily finish--very clean.

Draught @ Dilly Deli 3/22/08. Pours a slightly hazy amber color with small off white head and no lace. The aroma is sweet caramel malts with herbal and citrus hops. The flavor shows great balance between the moderately sweet caramel malt and the citrus hops. There is also notes of pine and biscuit. This was medium bodied, fresh, and easy to drink.

Hazy orange amber color with small head. Aroma of caramel, citrus, biscuits. Big hops...citrus, grapefruit, flowery...plus big grainy malts, alcohol. Significant carbonation; creamy yet spritzy mouthfeel. Big bitter oily hop finish with sweet notes.

on tap at 1702 a light amber to deep straw. plenty o lacing. aroma is pine and heavy spice. flavor is up from resiny hops and dry maltiness. very viscous and a ligering hop explosion.

The wife meant to drink this in her Austin hotel room. But she brought it back warm. The ice in the bucket was slow to respond. And it ended up back here in Columbia. One of a handful of Avery beers that for some odd reason don’t end up in Columbia (we only get about a half dozen). Malty. Heavy ABV. Drink it slow. Drink it fast. What the hell do I care? I’ll drink it in your place. Thank goodness for hotels without fridges.

Bomber into pint glass. Dark hazy honey with huge lasting and lacing, slightly off-white head. Aroma is dominated by citrus – grapefruit – along with sweet malty and yeasty notes. It has a great soft citrus flavor with an alcohol bite that is just barely intrusive; aside from the alcohol, the flavor is very malty with a great juicy hop flavor. It is medium to heavy body on the palate due to the thick malt body – very nice. Overall: this is even better than I expected. Another great Avery!

This is truly an amazing beer. This Kingly brew pours a royal reddish pale color, like one of the colors of the setting sun. Thw setting sun leaves an off white head like the clouds of the day. Taking the chill off the brew makes it smooth on my palate. The aroma is of the pines of Colorado. A little soapy too. The flavor is the same, very piney. Very unique. Not many brews can make it like this. A little sweet (very little sweetness) to it. I think the warmer it gets the more the sweetness comes out. Definently a royal brew. Thank you Avery. The Lord bless the hop harvest.

I love everything Avery does with the names of beers and the labels. Each name is significant to the style and the labels are well done with descriptive pictures and a little explanation for the name. This king of the IPAs pours a dark burnt orange color with a picture perfect head of about 4 centimeters (inch and half for those that use the King’s system). The lacing clings to the side of the glass as the head dissipates a bit. The aroma is strong with hops, citrus, pine with a touch of candy sweetness (lemonheads) usually not found in the big IPAs. I guess I would attribute it to their adequate use of heavy malts, which helps achieve the balance necessary to combat such massive amounts of hops. The flavor is big (. . . and powerful) but balanced (a strong but fair king?). The nose packs the malty punch to counteract the bittering hops, however, by the finish, the hops (and alcohol) prevail in a stinging sand storm of flavor. This certainly isn’t a king to be messed with!