Tag Archives: avery

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Avery Odio Equum, Proof that not all Sours Are Created Equal (AMBIGUOUS TITLES FTW)

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Man everyone is all kinda of butthurt about 12oz Black Note and just when the midwest about to sit on a rubber donut, Kopi Luwak Speedway comes out and prolapses their beer anuses even further. I wanted to get away from stouts for a bit to survey something we don’t get enough of on this site: MEDIOCRE ASS SOUR BEERS. Avery has turned out some solid beers in their 13 different offerings, but they have also lobbed some vinegar grenades that are like a Tempe taint after a long bike ride. This is closer to the taint side, but not for the reasons you would expect. IN WRITING WE CALL THAT A CLIFFHANGE-

Odio, sour odio,...would a rose by any other name taste as butyric?

Odio, sour odio,…would a rose by any other name taste as butyric?

Avery Brewing Company
Colorado, United States
American Wild Ale | 7.10% ABV

A: This has a deep muddy crimson aspect to it with burnt sienna meets magenta all up in the mix and very little wispy carbonation that subsides almost instantly. It looks kinda like if you took Consecration and beat its ass so bad that when you get into the beer hospital it is all taped up and all you can do it pat its hand and assure Consecration that they will find whoever did this to it.

You come expecting a fruity treat and leave with a savage bite.

You come expecting a fruity treat and leave with a savage bite.

S: This smelled like red wine vinegar at the outset when it was really cold and then I realized that I was beating a peanutbutter cunt drinking a beer at like 45 degrees, so I went and watched an episode of MTV Catfish to feel better about myself and returned. When I came back, the vinegar had spread its legs and introduced a minor aspect of some cranberry with a light blackberry on the backend, like the smallest dirtiest child in a foster home. There was some serious sour abuse going on here. WHO IS IN CHARGE OF THIS ACETYL HOUSE OF ILL REPUTE?

T: This just seriously goes butyric and tart to the point that it almost has a salinity to it. I don’t mean this in the sloppy labia crybaby way like when people try Cantillon for the first time, I mean this is one note, and that one note is not enjoyable, like the movie White Chicks. You get this intense grenadine meets soda left out after a sleepover, there is a bit of oak drying your gumline and giving you cankersores, the vinegar dryness finishes strong and lets you know that you aren’t welcome in Colorado. I want to say “oh but the fruit profile balances out the blahblahstrokingitblah” but I cannot. The fruit is like when you see a crew of homies and there is the one super small dude who does most of the out of the way tagging. It is hardly the dominant person up in the mix. This is not horrible, it is not as bad as something like Pipeworks Blue Lady, but YOU FEEL LIKE AVERY PHONED IT IN.

Once you open this, something seems very off.

Once you open this, something seems very off.

M: See above, as dry as the scenery and acting in Lawrence of Arabia, painful almost. I let it warm to see if there was some complexity to this, but at best it feels like the beautiful Consecration got wasted and boned the horrible Allagash Vagabond and this beast was the result. AND HERE WE ARE TO PICK UP THE PIECES. This is simply too tart in a way that has no redeeming balance. People who don’t know shit will be like “AHHH YEAHH I LOVEEE SOURSS LIKE THISS, YOU JUST…YOU CANT…HANG” I killed 2010 Weyerbacher Riserva myself, I dont need some weak penis lecture on sour beers, this lacks balance and YOUR TASTEBUDS ARE FUCKING WRONG.

D: Not very.

Alright I guess I have to say more than that unless I want this to look like a shitty youtube review. The biggest problem is the dryness that has no balance from the fruit or barrel characteristics. Perhaps a malties base beer would have offset the effects of the salty vinegar dryness, I don’t know, my job is to bitch and complain. If you come into this expecting some 2007 Rodenbach Grand Reserve treat, prepare for sads. You would be better served with a Duchess, better still Supplication, even more so Consecration. Or, call me crazy, stop being a poor fuck and spend $20 on Bruery Oude Tart and give your grandkids something to be proud of you for.

When it kicks in, you feel it in your jaw. And testicles.

When it kicks in, you feel it in your jaw. And testicles.

Narrative: Francis Brackery bought a crumbling house on a fallow raspberry farm. No one thought to tell him that berries would not grow well in central Nebraska, and as a result he was bitter and acrimonious to the core. Children would come to his house on Halloween, dressed in their shabby Nebraska costumes, Austin Powers, the Mask, lots of recycled items from other wealthier states, and he would give them hard unripe fruit in their pillow sacks. Francis looked out the window and heard the crabapples bounce off of his windows, hard and unwanted. One day while poking around in the cellar, he found a false wall that extended into a substantial underground chamber with rows and rows of crabapple vinegar. “FINALLY A TURN OF LUCK FOR OLD FRANNY BRACKERY!” he exclaimed, knocking a pot over onto his J Crew khakis, burning his genitals severely. The neighbors being from Nebraska were naturally as poor as the day is long and could offer no help. Now old man Brackery just rocks in his glider on the porch, looking into his mangled crabapple burns, thinking of what could have been.

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Avery Uncle Jacob’s Stout, A Stout that Socks You 215 years Beyond the Grave

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Avery beers have been divisive for me, sometimes it is a tart delight, other times it is a dramatic wine substitute. This is a nice foray into the world of their hellish huge beers in the same lineage as Mephistopheles, The Beast, Grand Cru, etc. I enjoyed one of those three, so we shall see how this 17.42% abv giant socks me in the face in today’s review.

The Left Hand glass is appropriate because this beer straight slapped me across the face.

Avery Brewing Company
Colorado, United States
American Double / Imperial Stout | 17.42% ABV

Let’s let the label speak for itself:

In the quest to create a collection of barrel-aged beers to be reproduced annually, Avery Brewing Company is releasing Uncle Jacob’s Stout, the second member of its Annual Barrel Series. The collection began with Rumpkin rum barrel-aged pumpkin ale in the fall of 2011, and now continues with this 17.4% ABV stout that was aged in first-use Bourbon barrels for 6 months. While the Avery Barrel-Aged Series features one-time-only batches, such as the recent Muscat d’Amour and Récolte Sauvage, the Annual Barrel Series features a selection of cellarable barrel-aged beers that fans can return to and get to know every year.

In other words, get ready to get socked in the liver.

A: This is jet black, Joan Jett black and this beer loves rock and/or roll. The lacing is minimal largely due to the huge slick sheeting imparted by the massive ABV. It settles to an inky blackness almost instantly but I wouldn’t expect my tank class to be nimble.

This beer will beat you ass, but you won’t feel embarrassed about it at all, well maybe a little.

S: The smell of this beer isn’t too menacing and almost comes across as something at half the alcohol content. There’s some gentle chocolate and brownie batter smell that subsides into some nice light char similar to a sweet Cohiba cigar. The bourbon has that oaky vanilla aspect similar to single barrel Buffalo Trace, but at 684 cases you know they used Rebel Yell or some shit that Eclipse nerds go apeshit for. Smells good, but this is the eye of the storm.

T: The sweetness of the bourbon rolls onto the sweet zones like tight sickles prickling the entire way back in a crackly chocolate pop rocks sensation. The light char can barely hold back the massive kraken that is the bourbon and sweet malts profile. Even the baker’s chocolate looks pissed, furiously rolling out baked macaroon shurikens and tossing them down the back of my throat.

Maybe it is the 17.4% abv, or maybe I am just too immature for this shit. Or both.

M: This is as hot as a New Mexico meth lab and scorches the insides just the same. The chocolate and coffee notes haunt like specters of mouths past, letting me know that this 12oz bottle should have been shared but, oh well, too late for those prodigious moments, off to 17.42% assaults. The chocolate octagon takes it out on your liver and Uncle Jacob stares on knowingly from a bourbon barrel altar, thumbing through the maltronomicon.

D: This is a tough call, at the outset I want to pull the simple “too hot, too big” red flag like all the haters but, I don’t think deserves that treatment. Sure it is a behemoth to wrangle and puts you back in 6th grade pretty quickly, the 16 bit RPGs are busted out after a single bottle. Sure you CAN drink a single bottle, but you certainly SHOULDN’T. I mean, sure I did, but do you want to be like me? Buying clothes at the LA Morgue and running a website that talks shit on beer nerds and hipsters? Well, I guess it isn’t so bad.

I guess this is similar to being put at peace, it is tantamount to self administered anesthesia.

Narrative: “This is a cop out but, I can’t formulate a reasonable response to this beer. My chest feels like E.T. punched my sternum and my mouth is like a 5th grade sleepover chocolate binge. I was gonna write this dystopian steampunk novella about a chocolate harbinger that steals bourbon souls, or some shit, but after a couple beers and then this haymaker, the creative juices are frozen in my head. I homebrewed something of a similar strength that was aged on Willet oak and it gave me this same heat in my chest and light residual headaches. Maybe I am just a cooze, maybe I could have just framed it as a first person narrative from some dialogue mouthpiece but oh well, here we are-” Thomas Jacobs thought to himself in his 8th grade algebra class, thinking of the 6’er of Coronas he had hidden under his bed.

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Avery Brewing Company Muscat D’Amour, If You Love Chardonnay, You Will Love This Lil Muscat

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So Avery has had a few ups and downs on these barrel aged beers and some I would without hesitation tell you to buy them, like condoms at Warped Tour, others I have a tough time aligning myself to because I am just a slovenly low brow beer swiller with no capacity for fermented grapes. Let’s take a look at this beer and see if any Statutory Grape takes place here.

For those times when wine seems too classy but beer seems too delicious.

Avery Brewing Company
Colorado, United States
American Wild Ale | 10.78% ABV

Oh that .78%, you’ll feel it. Actually you won’t. This is an incredibly crisp and gentle wild ale that imparts its alcohol like a Yakuza strangler knocking you out. Hey, you could have just provided the access codes, alas, I digress. So this is not unfamiliar territory at first, a chardonnay aspect, light malts, a lazy apple juice meets Martinellis aspect with minimal lacing. I am not getting all fussy about the appearance because, truthfully, this is a genuinely beautiful beer. There isn’t that old qualifier where you go “but she has a great personality” or some shit, it is like a gentle old IPA that you trust with your secrets and practices making kisses with.

The smell is like a bachelorette party at a wedding doomed for failure. There’s some sassy spritzer resfreshing notes of lime and salinity like the vodka sodas from the bridesmaids, and a deep muscat grape, white grape, Chardonnay, and apple that beckons to the old folks with their time worn traditions and irrelevant opinions about vagina shaving. Ultimately, a luscious bouquet. The tannins give this INCREDIBLY dry aspect to it that is like eating too many atomic warheads that starts nailing my bicuspids on the reg.

I am not a huge white wine fan, but I love Avery's barrel aged stuff, I cannot deny that I love this beer, NO MA'AM.

The taste is incredibly juicy, dry, mildly tart, oaky, but incredibly tannic. Just start whipping up some Chilean Sea Bass if you pop this beast, the pairings will be a marital aid for the entire household. The label says this beer is “a lovely amalgamation, awash with the delicate expressions and subtle nuances of soft malt, ripe muscat blanc grapes and savory brett.” I would say that is the eHarmony dating profile of this beer that upplays some aspects and fails to underscore some obese drying aspects. This is unmistakeably beer, which I am stoked on, but it also has a huge vinuous aspect, which actually works well, as well.

This beer confused me at first, but once I understood the nuances it became incredibly fulfilling.

This reminds me of an “imperial Temptation” if that makes sense. The drying is bigger, the brett is bigger, the oak is more burly, and the kisses are more furious. If that is up your alley, consider my alley completely occupied.

There is a lot going on here but if you stick with it, you will see the mastery presented.

Narrative: Sofia took a deep sip of chardonnay and exhaled watching the Marlboro 100 smoke dance blue in the moonlight and contemplated the course of the next 35 minutes. Here she was, chapter 9 into Nicholas Sparks’s The Notebook Dvd, but she was still entirely unable to contemplate the potential for intercourse with Chad, whose first name was unmistakably irritating. The deep pulls of Barefoot and Yellowtail brought no guidance and merely muddled her divided conscience. Finally, in a moment of clarity she exhaled and saw a verisimilitude of a Velasquez painting and realized the fleeting nature of life, the bacchanalian rebirth of grapes, and the pomegranate seeds or Persephone slipping through her fingers every day. “SKIP TO CHAPTER 21” she commanded to a supplicant Chad, his memory foam mattress left besmirched with alarm. “That’s…chill…” she spit Chardonnay kisses deep into his mouth and rose above the trite romantic exploits, for in this moment, the IKEA foam and shitty movie posters could not denature what was essentially an exercise of incongruence. It was Sofia’s duty to empirically sample enough Chads to black out those sections of the Punnett Squares for the time in life when it really mattered. It wasn’t the best grad school essay, but it was true.

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Avery Brewing Company Immitis, A Tart Zinfandel Smacker for Old Nana

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I always love wrangling these Avery sours to give them the business, for better or worse. Dihos was awesome, and a recent foray, for those who recall, was less than incredible. Let’s see what Immitis has in store, get your grapes in check for today’s review.

Ya'll with tinnitus can't hear what I am spitting about Immitis. C:/run_forcedjoke.exe

Avery Brewing Company, Immitis Sour Wild Ale, 9.54% abv

A: The appearance might be the darkest wild ale I have ever seen this side of Tart of Darkness (kinda?) If you really look into it like a Kubrich film, there’s a light violet hue at the very edges but this beer is straight up soy sauce black with zero lacing or carbonation. Soy sauce swag to the maximum.

Just smelling this beer and reading the bottle, you are confused, but you are pretty sure some epic shit is gonna go down.

S: Given the low carbonation, it’s tough to rankle this beer’s jimmies to elicit an aroma profile. There’s definitely some jammy preserves like blueberry, blackberry and of course red grape. On the backend is this condiment sort of acidity that comes across like balsamic. I’m not dipping a baguette in it, but it would def pair with red sauce well. Colorado loves Italian people.

T: The taste holds its own amiably and delivers a roundhouse of cherry, currant, black cherry, and grapeity grape. The tartness isn’t lambic overload but provides a complex but nuanced deck of rares and supporting uncommons to deal some damage. The abv is hidden well and I would foresee some recent divorcee seeing the Zinfandel moniker and be all stoked to pop in some Borgias or whatever mature people watch these days. This is a beer ripe for serving at some Santa Monica hotel bar with patrons saying “there’s just NO TIME once you have your second child-” that sorta shit.

Despite the initial intimidation, this beer is ultimately amiable and downright amazing in its own strange way.

M: The mouthfeel is very light and again, the alcohol runs hand in hand with the tart acidity and just clotheslines the shit out of all opposition. The oakiness lingers for a long ass time. If you have ever been to Guitar Center and seen the dude with the wavy ass hair running apreggios on a Les Paul, that last note, this is this beer. Just bewwwwweeeeeeeesoursoursouroooohhhhhhhoakoakoakoakzzzzeeeeeeegrapegrapebeoooooooo-

D: This is fantastic on all fronts and it is unsurprisingly a secret potation to take down mid-30’s women at the knee like Cobra Kai students. If college students weren’t piss poor and bad at everything, I would suggest that they buy this to increase the shittiness of watching The Notebook for the billionth time, but they won’t listen. They won’t listen.

In retrospect, it was a confusing 12 ounces, but I am better having experienced it.

Narrative: “JANETTTTT! OMG THIS WEIRDO IS TRYING TO talk to ME!” Skyler yelled across the packed Hermosa Beach bar and pleaded for the assistance of her equally shallow hateful companion. “No, I was just saying that it’s quite humid inside, which is ironic considering the coastal layer-” “EWWW this weirdo is STILL FUCKING TALKING! Not even gonna lie, gotta leave,” Skyler lied. Mike Cureant could not understand it. He was engaging, relevant, an accomplished greco roman wrestler, but somehow, engaging in civil, cordial conversation with emotionally and intellectually bankrupt sociology majors just DID NOT SEEM TO WORK. Tonight he wore a Theory shirt and was assured that has polar properties for the attraction of labia. Notwithstanding, his shirt remained soaked with a Ketel/soda/slash of pineapple/twist of lime/grenadine dash that was spilled on him by a girl whom he could only assume was named after a state or an R.L. Stine character. It was all Mike’s fault, he was tart inside and sophisticated at the same time, but he was pushing himself on all the wrong forums, with souring results.

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Avery Recolte Sauvage, Oscar Wilde Ale, It is Tart; but Sassier

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Avery keeps rolling out these batches of tiny, super-esoteric batches of beer that people rate extremely highly and I feel like that fat kid pressing his face to the bakery window, just looming on the sweet treats foreboding inside. Finally a friend hooked me up and I gave some Kern River goodness and both parties had tasted the rockies, respectively. This is a beer aged with Cabernet Sauvignon Grapes and then aged in Cabernet Sauvignon barrels. Basically…wine.

An immature palate wanders into the world of wine reviews...


Avery, Recolte Sauvage, Barrel Aged Wild Ale, 11% abv

A: This seriously looks exactly like Juicy Juice. Just straight up grape juice from concentrate. I guess I could make a parallel to some Merlots but really, it looks like a deep purple, no maltiness or carbination, just juice through and through, like Tupac.

There seems to be a bit of a scheme going on here to dupe the beer consumer. Maybe I am the only one.

S: The waft is of a tannic astringency, it goes to the black cherry, then dark grape varietal and lands on an acetyl tartness at the end. It reminds me of a Consecration whose balls have been pressed fully to the wall. If you prefer your testicles wall-mounted, I have a beer for you.

T: Looks like a duck, smells like a duck, wait for it. . .tastes exactly like wine. like a beer that was made with grapes, very little malt and then aged in wine barrels without yeast. Seriously, this is basically a wine with a mild bread profile. I don’t like being tricked into being a mediocre 30 something talking about Nurse Jackie episodes. This shit went Cougartown really quickly. It has a huge acerbic finish not in the cool “oh like a Cantillon St. Lamvinus?” no, like drinking a straight up glass of Kendall Jackson Cab. I look at my one time friend, the beer looking all entreating, tricking me with its vinous foul play.

Above: one of the best RPG's of all time, if you ask me to list the best wines ever, I am at a loss unless Sephiroth is involved.

M: Have you ever tasted Cabernet Sauvignon? Well, shake it up a bit to gain some bubbles and there you go. This is literally 80% wine and 20% hateful potation. The entire glass has a deep violet hue, there’s no lacing, I am way out of my territory here and I fear wineblogs are closing in, airlock is opening, if anyone reads this space station message, just tell them, I have always hated wine. . .in every…way…

D: Well again, this is determined by the nature of your very existence. I feel like I am trapped at an educational mixer with the traditional red wines, those chuckles and heel rocking with the effusive gestures. It is a perpetual “cool” PTA meeting with the notes of tannins that dry a bit and I COULD drink a lot of this, but moreover, I dont want to. It isn’t because it is bad, far from this, it is well executed but…I have the palate of a 21 year old boy. If you give me nice things I will bury them and spike stock certificates in the ground and eat Kraft Macaroni. It is my own shortcoming, not this beer’s.

Ultimately, I have ran out of arguments against wine so I shelter myself with beer to appear more intellectual. This has never happened before.

Narrative: Janice Roth was a recent divorcee, proud in demeanor, light in expression lines, stern in demeanor. Her 6 year-old minx did not trouble her much and she still served respectfully within InGeniDyneDCorp. as a regional semi-vice-personnel overseeing director. A title she held in cold reverence. Janitors would tip their caps in an almost anachronistic reverence of Mrs. Roth and as she piled into her comfy leather highbacked chair she exhaled sharply. “Janey Janey, when did it come to this?” she ruminated to herself as she operated the corkscrew within her desk to open a Chateau Margeaux, not the ’95 the ’96. She sipped the tonic judiciously and looked out the window ingratiatingly upon the foot traffic below. “The man you loved ran away, you have two beautiful girls who adore you, but something feels so wrong-” she knocked the bottle over and watched the crimson liquid gather in stern liquid rivulets. The sum value of her being was collected in this trivial libation. She had been reduced to episodes of the Bachelor and listening to Jason Mraz mixtapes. This was her inherent value after years and years of sacrifice. And then- she gets hit in the crotch or takes a pie in the face to still make this a comedy narrative, right? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT? WELL TOO BAD SAD DIVORCEE STORY IS TODAY’S NARRATIVE.