Mephistopheles' Stout - Avery Brewing Company

Cavery

California

3.3/5  rDev -20.1%
look: 4 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.5

12oz split with Klym in Over-Sized Wine glasses.

Batch 4 November 2008

A: Red brown head with a noticeable velvet-like texture. Fine but fuzzy with a mixing of bubble sizes. The head fell relatively quickly to reveal a sticky slow moving mud like lacing. The lacing didn't really stick, but it slid down like mud on a window. Thick looking with some nice colors in the bubbles. The body actually seems to let the slightest bit of light through. Looks like the heaviest cup of decaf coffee you've ever seen.

S: Whiskey dowsed fried fig skins. Bourbon heavy alcohol really sticks in the nose with a crisp woodiness. The smell actually comes off quite mellowed, but there's no mistaking the alcohol qualities in the nose. Faint notes of campfire and a big powdery graham cracker note in the end. Loving the depth of the biscuit like grahams at the middle-end of this beer. Really though, alcohol is the flavor of the day. Older bananas come to mind as I think harder.

T: Nearly three years old, and still hot as a bonfire. Fortunately the alcohol flavor really isn't so bad at all, but my goodness if it doesn't taint every other note in there. Dark fruits, floating in alcohol. Coffee cake biscotti, in a bucket of alcohol. Really to be totally honest the thing I most get out of this beer is how flammable it is. The flavors are rudely interrupted by clean shots of booze.

M: The brew is wetting on the tongue with some pretty harsh alcohols. There is a brief period where you could swear there's some cream added to the booze, but ultimately it's more of a passing phase. It's like having a harsh mixer where maybe baileys is 1/5th of the ingredients. I want the creaminess to blend more proportionately with the alcohol for a silky mouth-feel experience, but it ends up being wet and underwhelming. I don't like how the alcohol finds the back of the throat like those shots you pound in college. Not the fullest of mouths, but at the same time not terribly light either.

O: the highlight of this beer was seeing a semi-impressive head come out of something this old and this alcoholic. there were some interesting notes in the nose that did their best to warn about the amount of alcohol. The taste was pretty straight forward in that it was a crazy boozed of version of a great many dark beers. There were on or two fancy notes in there that took me to fine European desserts, but ultimately a Russian invasion of vodka like alcohols swarmed the palate like angry bees. I longed for a creamy mouth-feel that was at times suggested, but did not stand a chance against the cruel alcohol overlord in this beer. Splitting a 12oz with my brother was more than enough, a rough one to finish.

Serving type: bottle

07-22-2011 01:34:43 | More by Cavery

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S: Amazingly it doesn't smell boozy at aver 16%. Nice brown sugar smell. Very faint cocoa. Roasty malts. It smells really good.

T: Wow, surprisingly smooth. I can taste "campfire", a smoky wood flavor. The turbinado sugar is noticeable and works nicely with the aggressive flavors in this beer.

M: Heat. The taste is smooth but this beer definitely leaves you warm in the mouth. Moderate to mild carbonation.

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Serving type: bottle

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