Twenty One, Anniversary Edition | Avery Brewing Company 8.7% ABV

This dry hopped wild card is labelled an Imperial Indian-Style Brown Ale.

Espresso, dark fruit sweetness, and other chocolate malt flavors dominate though they’re somewhat balanced by hop bitterness that clocks in at 80 IBU.

It has the modest carbonation, dark ruby brown color, and full body of an English brown ale, except with more hop bitterness and a high but mostly masked ABV. The aroma however is one of dark malt sweetness and hazelnut rather than its aromatic Amarillo and Simcoe hops.

I’m not a frequent brown ale drinker simply because I love effervescence and bitterness and find high malt sweetness difficult to drink so this was a compromise for me. I still found this ale a little too dominated by malt and I wish the hop aroma and bitterness had cut through the malt sweetness a touch more but that's just personal preference. This was an accomplished brew that suited Avery's birthday very well.

Presentation:

• out of one of those fancy globes that open up into a liquor cabinet.

Pairing:

• a drinking buddy who, to everyone’s tacit discomfort, romanticises the Empire a lil too much.

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