Avery Anniversary Thirteen

Formerly brewed at Avery Brewing Company
Style: Weizen Bock
Boulder, Colorado USA

Serve in Dimpled mug, Stein, Weizen

Bottle. Clear brown coloured with a beige head. Aroma of malts, caramel, fruits and hops. Flavour of malts, caramel, dried fruits and hops.

22 oz bottle: Deep brown w/a lasting light beige head. Initial aroma is wheat, clove, and alcohol with hints of banana and chocolate. Lots of solventy alcohol. Medium toasted malt, but very little dark fruit otherwise. Lightly nutty after it warms. Well balanced overall w/ a dry finish. Alcohol estery fruitiness throughout, wheat malt with a light clove spice. Slight banana ester and chocolate flavor. Finish has a light clove and wheat/toasty malt flavor that lasts along w/ a bit of alcohol estery flavors, and a bit of plum fruitiness, but it’s light. Warming alcohol, dry m/f from alcohol, and medium body w/ medium high carbonation. Overall, except for the alcohol presence, an enjoyable beer. I wish I had this out at the campfire last night instead of my Goose Island Nut Brown Ale.

22 oz bomber. Pours a brownish mahogany reddish color with a thick creamy beige head. Aroma is pleasantly malty with hints of dark chocolate,winter spices,dark fruit and freshly baked wheat bread. Taste is malty from the beginning with hints of dark fruit-dates,plums,prunes,dark chocolate,toffee,warm dough bread and fresh yeast. Excellent overall and quite different.

Bottle. Deep mahogany. Small rapidly vanishing tan head. Nose is dark malts, light chocolate and pumpernickel bread. Soft banana and a touch of alcohol. Taste is bready and malty with sweet notes, chocolate, soft banana, light bubblegum notes and alcohol. Body is light-medium, mild carbonation and lots of alcohol warmth. Finishes with lots of chocolate, burnt dark malts, light dark fruit flavors, alcohol and candy notes. Not bad but a little hot right now.

Bottle (650ml). Shared with blankboy, mds and tupalev, my bottle. Deep clear mahogany-ruby with an average creamy tan head. Roasty dry yeasty aroma, apple cores, mild winter spices, very light floral hops - has a lovely burnt malt character, makes me think "winter." Taste - burnt caramel malt, chocolate and nut roastiness, hoppy and yeasty, hints of plums and prunes - long dark finish, bitter and caramelized. Thick, syrupy body, surprisingly light alcohol - long, bitter roasty finish. Really nice, like a burnt dubbel.

Bottle: Very dark red with a thin tan head. Only a light malty aroma. But this is a bountifully full brown-sugar, roasty-sweet beer. Raisiny, almost like Raisin wine? Excellent, big beer.

On-tap at the Happy Gnome: Classified as a "Weizen Doppelbock" and looking like so...Thickly leathered brown, nearly black appearance with a slim cap of light tanned, firm froth. Only some dotted lacing sticks. Not a surprise really given the malts this sucker probably has in it. And the aroma is just that. Malts! And lots of em; big on molasses with a slimming caramel swaft and toffee/chocolate bitterness keeping in stride as some root beer candy solidifies a tangyness found only in some overly malted and dark beers such as this. Touches of spice include licorice, dark wheat, under ripe banana peels, and pale bread yeast. Quite nice on the nose. Taste is smooth and inviting with a load of pale chocolate sweetness mixing with a semi tangy molasses, pruney/ plummy, toffee center as it rounds off to the finish quickly and eagerly with some soft dark wheat and banana estery yeasty notes and mild, floating away spices. Not as long of a ride as it should or could be. For some reason I wanted and needed more out of its flavors. What’s there is quite nice, but some how shortened in length enough for an unimpulsive give and take between its fairly thick and silky smooth body and its thicker set aroma. A bit disappointing I’m afaid as far as that’s concerned. Damn solid though. Body is well-rounded, slick, creamy, and smooth with a soft eager pull at the sweetness side of the malts as it rides evenly, somewhat, within a pale chocolate tone over the tanged molasses and pruney/dark candied stuff. Again the finish comes too soon and doesn’t linger for much attention grabbing as it should. Good little nudge of yeasty, wheaty spices make for some interst just before it trails off. Another solid offering by Avery, a bit sliding from the scale in flavor; more so in depth and length really, then the actual taste. But those kinda go hand in hand with me. Needs to be tasty, and stay tasty; ya know what I mean. Don’t get me wrong, the flavors are quite nice, just needed more of them to last. Perhaps it’s better then I’m stating here, solid for sure, and drinkable without any hint to the 9.5 % other then the hit to the head way later as the glass drains pretty easily. And another is needed. Again, Avery has a winner here, not quite a favorite though. Close...oh so close...

Bottled. Very dark ruby color, good big foamy tan head. Light banana esters, licorice and alcohol in the nose. Lightly roasted, fruity (banana esters), some alcohol but suprisingly light for this ABV, tasty, easy to drink. Sweeter than German ones, maybe because of hopping?