Avery The Beast Grand Cru

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 8

Pours clear mahogany with a thin buff head. Aroma has cloves, caramel, toasted malt and earthy tones. Flavor is indeed a beast, charging across the palate with caramel, spicy (mostly cloves), woody, earthy and toasted malt notes - and an alcohol bite like an angry tomcat. Body is firm, fizz is good, and finish is sweet but not cloying. This Beast is a beauty!

Aroma: 9 | Appearance: 10 | Mouthfeel: 10 | Flavor: 10 | Overall: 9

Holy crap 18% abv. I can't feel the alcohol in my mouth but I damn sure can in my head. This pours out 100% black with only a lacing of a brown head. The aroma is over whelming but with pleasure. The taste right up front blackstrap molasses. It's balanced with honey dates, figs and lord who knows what else. It's very complex and a real joy to drink. But at 18% take it easy.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 8

Avery is a bit one dimensional with big beers, seems like they are just pushing abv. That said, this beer does taste good, a much better big beer than Mephistopheles in my opinion. Too expensive to drink often but worth trying.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 6

Shared bottle at local tasting, thanks to gunnar. Batch 6 2008, 16,31% ABV. Hazy dark brown colour, moderate beige head. Intense aroma and flavour of malts, molasses and alcohol. Simply too much of the good stuff - there’s no way I could have finished a bottle of this beer on my own.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 6 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 5 | Overall: 6

Avery tries to do a lot of Belgian style stuff, and I find it all quite underwhelming. This is no exception. The 14.06% ABV is very noticeable, as is the yeast. I'll pass if offered again!

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 7

A deep cloudy amber colored ale. A small off white soapy textured head rises above. Settles fairly quickly leaving a thin ringlet. Through the intense alcohol, prunes and raisins come through in the nose. Full bodied, highly carbonated. As in the smell, through the alcohol bite sweet fruit (prunes, raisins, black cherry dominate). Certainly different. A decent quaff though I'm not sure it should have commanded such a high price tag.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 9

Nicely cellared and mind blowing, this beer could do no wrong. Appearance was a bit weak with a flat amber/copper body followed by no head or lacing, but at 15% and well aged I wasn't expecting anything more. Intriguingly fruity nose with a complimenting faint band-aid scent, it doesn't sound appealing but it was nice. Very rich mouth feel, slow and steady with this one. Yeasty fruit flavors all jumbled together with a sweet rum like quality. Wonderful.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

holy crap, there's a ton going on in there. so many different things...read the label (brewer's description)...this beer is done well enough that you can actually taste each ingredient, and all that at a whopping 16.31%. Nice surprise!! had again, remembering i really liked it, but it was even better this time around. soooo complex, and the somehow the mix of turbanado sugar, belgian candi sugar, raisins, honey, etc...is not overly sweet. in fact, the aroma is close to a 10, while the only thing that knocks the flavor, just a tiny notch, is the alcohol presence. still would never beleive the abv of this one if i didn't read it for myself.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Pours mahagony with red highlights and small, creamy, lasting head. The aroma is complex with ripe fruit, especially raison and plum, balanced by grainy notes. The flavor is akin to a barleywine. It boasts bright, red fruitiness, strong alcohol, and a lingering honey sweetness. Like so many strong ales, the flavor improves and intensifies as it warms. Full bodied with severe warming affect. Great sampler.

Aroma: 9 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 7

Sampled from bottle. Pour clear mahogany with a full tan head. Wonderfully complex aroma - until I took a sip. The alcohol is so overwhelming it killed the aroma when I went back for another whiff. After coming back... dark fruits, rum, burnt sugar (like a brulee). Hot flavor overwhelms otherwise what appears to be a complicated malt & sugar bill. Full bodied, sticky and highly carbonated.