Avery Brewing has been a solid pillar in the craft beer scene for ages.  They boast a solid historical portfolio of classic mainstays, some solid wild ales, and largely accessible massive beers that convert pre-Cicerones (precerones) to hard fermented strains.  But historical relevance aside, what have they done for DDB lately? Usually they are the brewery that saves my ass when I have to go to a restaurant and they are my lifesaver in a list of predictable macro/boring craft options. They haven’t been acquired, they don’t have some apeshit aims to flood the world with mass produced wild ales, they haven’t tried to get their fans to finance a new brewery in Cologne: SO WHAT IS THEIR DEAL?

First and foremost they made a widely distributed BA Vanilla stout that costs like fucking eleven dollars. I added the nucleation. However, if you are expecting like madagascar flavored TWEAK or something, slow your roll.  This is pretty solid and low hanging fruit for the type of casual beer guy to get hooked: typical Avery shit. This is thin relative to the style, has a slick mouthfeel more akin to a big porter, little cling and sheeting and finishes with a minerality that boosts crushability but makes it less nuanced.

This reminds me more of like A&W cream soda than those mallow and brownie bombs you read about in last month’s Barrel aged vanilla stout shootout.

It is relatively svelte and presents some Dr. Pepper meets waffle cone type of notes. It isn’t a paradigm shift, nor does it have any discernible issues either. Then again this doesn’t go for like $800 on the secondary market.  Cost, availability and overall execution makes this a solid buy without clear analogue until Stone catches up in 2019 with the BRAND NEW VANILLA STONE IRS OMG SUCH INNOVATE.

You probably have had this a billion times or seen it for like $30 in some $$$ restaurant as their CROWN JEWEL in the reserve list next to like, Velvet Merkin or some marked up shit.  It is a massive boozy blast of rum and caramel with this tiny Cinderella pumpkin sidecar tacked on to reduce the power/weight ratio.  This is massively fusel when cold and had a thin body not unlike TWEAK that makes things unbalanced at first.  This is like if Bruery and Southern Tier had a forbidden love child, it would be this oddball that is hard not to appreciate. It is a fun adventure, like once or twice, but I don’t know who this beer is for.  Halloween fetishists with srs drinking problems. I can get behind that. Dat price point tho, yeesh.

This beer is a liquid nightmare crafted in the deepest recesses of your REM stage 4 insecurities. What is this?
“Barrel-aged Mexican-style barleywine that will use Agave syrup, chile peppers and malted smoked wheat.”

If you “NOPE” siren isn’t blaring, then strap in for the ride. The body is “Christian Bale in the machinist” thin, so the adjunct elements get to run rampant and fuck your mouth up without restriction.  The chili throws a flashbang and deadens all the bittering zones that could appreciate things, then agave syrup rolls in firing an SKS of sticky oddly syrupy turbinado sugars/rock candy/maple at all bystandards.  A touch of smoke lingers while you are trying to figure out what just happened, the gaunt “barleywine” aspect saunters through in a khaki jacket cleaning his fingernails, totally detached.

It was almost like someone thought Huna, except using Leon as a base would be a good idea, and also put his two weeks notice in while writing the recipe as a final swan song to the beer world before drowning himself in a britetank. It is unquestionably “original” but like that 1979 Japanese film HOUSE, it’s like WHAT IN THE FUCK IS GOING ON WHY IS THIS HAPPENING.

Ah this fucking classic gem. I loved this guy back in 2012 when I had it at the Blue Palms anniversary, suffice it to say the cans are still legit, but not as good as the draft version from the past.  The biggest difference is this KOOLs menthol/Vick’s Vapor Rub thing accompanying the wheaty gristy fruity fun.  It’s like everyone is having fun at a Jamba Juice co-op and your chain smoking uncle shows up talking about how “jet fuel cant melt steel beams” and dampens the mood.  This is a no brainer for the price point, mobile format, accessibility, and a welcome shredding on the White Rascal prototype.  This is such a logical extensive of what Avery does that I could see so many of these being crushed on Eliminator boats, in movie theaters, at High School football games.

This is beer made for patently irresponsible behavior.  The sweetness of the fruit and creamy whip of the wheat makes these so drillable without ever giving you pause: THE IDEAS JUST COME TO YOU. If someone bigleagues this and suggests something ridiculously different like OH WELL CASEY PEACH FRUIT STAND IS BETTER, that dude has a thumb dick and you dont need to listen to people like that.

I braced myself for this one thinking it would be the habanero mother of all agave noted above but this was SHOCKINGLY FUCKING TASTY.  This is essentially an old ale, aged in bourbon barrels, with ginger added.  But get this: THE GINGER DOESNT COMPLETELY FUCK EVERYTHING UP.  This is like if you made a Moscow mule with cane rum instead of boring vodka.  There’s all the booziness attendant to the old ale base with oak, leather, sugar daddies, but then OH SHIT CANADA DRY ROLLS UP.  The wasabi ginger opens up the nostrils like Blenheim’s ginger ale.  I can’t think of anything exactly like this in recent memory and this shines in any tasting as this beautiful chimera of palate stretching.

It feels more cocktail than beer in many aspects and if you ever wanted to drink an old fashioned on a sick day, here’s your hot toddy.

There you go.  That’s what Avery is up to.  Their anniversary beers are consistently a complete fucking trainwreck of dizzying proportions, but they constantly chamber the cartridge and pop china lake rounds on people below. They serve an unwavering function in the beer world that, unlike Rogue, hasn’t gone to total shit over the years.

brb fielding all these DDB IS A FUKN SELL OUT accusations for this falsely glowing review. typical shit.