Review: Samael by Avery Brewing Co.
Jun. 19th, 2008 02:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mishalakI drank this last week and this is my late review.
The bottle says oak-aged ale, but given that this local brew is 15.53% abv it probably should be called a barley wine or something. It is not fortified but cane sugar was added to the mash to make this so incredibly strong. The sugar is a distinct sweet note that plays off of a fruity bitterness that did not seem terribly hoppy to me, though after drinking I found hops as an ingredient on the label. (How nice of them to actually list their ingredients.) I was not similarly uninformed about the oak, but I am fairly sure that its presence would have been readily apparent even in a blind taste testing. Over all it is rather like a moderately fruity Belgian beer fortified with a bit of whiskey with a sweet finish.
I am not sure this is worth the price ($6+ for a 12 oz. bottle!), but it was definitely worth trying.
The bottle says oak-aged ale, but given that this local brew is 15.53% abv it probably should be called a barley wine or something. It is not fortified but cane sugar was added to the mash to make this so incredibly strong. The sugar is a distinct sweet note that plays off of a fruity bitterness that did not seem terribly hoppy to me, though after drinking I found hops as an ingredient on the label. (How nice of them to actually list their ingredients.) I was not similarly uninformed about the oak, but I am fairly sure that its presence would have been readily apparent even in a blind taste testing. Over all it is rather like a moderately fruity Belgian beer fortified with a bit of whiskey with a sweet finish.
I am not sure this is worth the price ($6+ for a 12 oz. bottle!), but it was definitely worth trying.