REVIEW: Avery The Reverend

A while back I lamented that, with my look at The Czar, I had officially run out of beers from Avery's Dictators series beers to talk about. What I forgot though, is that there's a whole other series of wonderful beers from Avery, the Holy Trinity of Ales. In that series are, Hog Heaven, a heavily hopped barleywine, Salvation, a Belgian style golden ale, and the beer I'll be talking about today, The Reverend a 10% ABV Belgian style quad. I'm always a fan of a big, dark, malty Belgian style beer, so I'm pretty excited to give this one a try. To the beer!

The Reverend pours a deep purplish scarlet in color. The head on this beer is honestly a bit meager. A finger of off white foam recedes to a thin rim pretty quickly but does leave some spotty lacing.

On the nose there's plenty of dark fruity notes of cherry, plum, raisin and fig. Alongside all the fruit are toffee malt, some powdery candied sugar, and a slight peppery hint. As the beer warms up an herbal/ pine-ish hop character becomes apparent.

The reverend is pretty full bodied. Powdery, rich, creamy dark fruit flavors take the lead. Notes of cherry, plum, and raisin mimic the nose. Earthy, spicy, burnt sugar flavors add some nice complexity. The beer is nice and sweet but it finishes with a nice bite and a surprising almost bright citrusy flavor.

I enjoyed this one a lot. The complex dark fruit flavors and aromas are really pretty lovely. I know I'm an easy mark for a beer like this but what can I say? It hit the spot!

HD