The Beer Nut: Love 'em or leave 'em

There's usually no in between when it comes to the Avery Brewing Company you either love their beers, or you hate them.

Brewery owner Adam Avery says he is perfectly fine with that.

"We've always been a binary brewery, you either love us or hate us," said the owner of the small Colorado brewery. "We make beers for ourselves that's No. 1. We brew beer we want to drink. We hope to find enough markets and ... enough people who share our opinion on our beers."

And so far the Avery Brewing Company has been successful in finding those people. They currently sell beer in 32 states and are celebrating their 15th anniversary.

To celebrate, the brewery released 15, an American wild ale.

Wild ales are typically brewed with wild yeast, in this case 100 percent brettanomyces yeast. The 15 is the largest batch of 100 percent brettanomyces beer ever produced, Avery said.

"It's a completely different style than beer we usually introduce," the brewer said. "It's tart, but it's not sour. It's dry. It's brewed with figs, hibiscus flowers and white pepper. The figs are very subtle. It's a cool beer, and it's going to taste different to everyone."

What Avery is known for is big beers. Of the 21 beers being brewed this year, more than half will contain more than 8 percent alcohol by volume (ABV). The average mass-produced beer is less than 5 percent ABV.

The biggest three are part of what Avery calls his Demon Series the Beast, Samael's Ale and Mephistopheles.

The Beast is a Belgian-style dark ale, weighing in at 16.4 percent ABV. Samael is an oak-aged English strong ale and is 14.5 percent ABV, and the Mephistopheles is a Russian imperial stout and is 16 percent ABV.

"I'm a recovering Catholic," said Avery, explaining his choice of names for some of Avery's beers. "I'm not a Catholic anymore, but I have all these images in my head."

He also brews what he calls the Dictator Series the Czar, the Kaiser and Maharaja.

The Czar is a 12.2 percent ABV Russian imperial stout, while the Maharaja (my favorite Avery beer) is a double IPA, which is 9.7 percent ABV. The Kaiser (my least favorite Avery beer) is an imperial or double Oktoberfest beer, which is 9.5 percent ABV.

"I like to do things in threes. Sometimes four is too many," Avery said.

Avery's reputation for big beers began in 1997. The brewery wasn't doing that well, and Avery said he decided to introduce Hog Heaven, a 9.2 percent ABV barley wine.

"That was our turning point," he said.

Another popular ale is the Collaboration, Not Litigation Ale a Belgian strong dark ale.

The beer came about when Avery met Vinnie Cilurzo, brewer of the Russian River Brewing Company of California. They realized they both brewed a beer named Salvation.

Instead of arguing about who kept the name, Avery visited Russian River in 2004. They blended the beers to see how it tasted, and they liked how it worked.

"Then in mid-2006, I was doing an interview with a reporter and they were asking about it, and it came out in the article that said we were doing the beer," said Avery. "I called and said, 'Vinnie, we're kind of (expletive) here. We have to do something now."'

The pair worked together to come out with a blend they liked, and they released it under the legal-sounding name last year.

"Vinnie and I think it's a better beer than either of our Salvations," Avery said.

If you're not into big beers, Avery does have several lower-alcohol beers, including Ellie's Brown Ale (5.8 percent ABV), White Rascal (5.5 percent ABV), IPA (6.3 percent ABV) and Out of Bounds Stout (5.1 percent ABV).

"I think producing low-alcohol flavor bombs is the way to go," he said. "I've talked about making a non-alcoholic IPA. People think I'm joking, but it would be awesome to wake up in the morning and have an IPA. That's one of my goals."

Another beer to keep an eye out for is the Ale to the Chief, which will hit stores later this year. Avery calls it a presidential pale ale.

"It's going to be a monster," he said. "We pledge to give a bunch of this beer to whoever wins the presidency."

Norman Miller is a Daily News staff writer. For questions, comments, suggestions or recommendations, e-mail nmiller@cnc.com or call 508-626-3823. Check out the Beer Nut blog at http://blogs.townonline.com/beernut/.