It’s out with the old and in with the funky at Avery Brewing. The Boulder-based brewery recently announced changes to its beer lineup, which will focus more heavily on their Botanicals & Barrels series in the coming year, as well as on expanding distribution of their core lineup.
Avery’s 2017 core beer lineup now includes Liliko’i Kepolo and El Gose, in addition to mainstays White Rascal, Ellie’s Brown Ale, Out of Bounds Stout and The Reverend. The brewery will focus on increasing distribution for these six brews, along with their Hop Freaks Unite series, which includes Joe’s Pils, Avery IPA, Raja, The Maharaja and Hog Heaven. These 11 beers will be available year-round across the country.
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In addition to these core beers, Avery will also begin brewing new beers in the Botanicals & Barrels series, which will include six year-round and nationally distributed beers by spring 2017. Their popular Raspberry Sour and Vanilla Bean Stout will be joined by a tangerine quad, an apricot sour, a ginger sour and a coconut porter.
To make room for these new beers, the brewery will retire a few long-time favorites from their Demons of Ale series. Samael’s, The Beast and Mephistopheles will be phased out by the end of 2016, along with Salvation and Dugana. The Kaiser and The Czar will also be retired, leaving Maharaja as the lone member of the Dictator series.
The shift in focus will allow Avery to build on its already extensive barrel aging program. Avery hopes to have more than 3,300 barrels in its collection by the end of 2016. “The Demons and Dictators series were ahead of their time when they first came out, but that was over a decade ago,” says Avery Brewing Company’s co-founder and CEO, Adam Avery. “These beers led the way for everything we do today to push the boundaries of our beer. Now we are taking all that courage, expertise and quality control we gained and amplifying it in a much bigger way in our barrel program.”
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This change does not necessarily mean we won’t see these beers in the future. Some Demons and Dictators may rise from the dead. “Just because we are killing off these beers doesn’t mean that we won’t resurrect them in the form of taproom rarities or throw them in a barrel,” says Travis Rupp, the head of the barrel-aging program at Avery. And for the high ABV fans out there, Avery will continue its Barrel-Aged Series and Annual Barrel Series.” So seasonal favorites like Tweak, Rumpkin and Uncle Jacob’s Stout will be back.
The brewery has had a long history of pushing the envelope when it came to craft beer. “The Barrel-Aged Series, especially those with brewery-only releases is a direct extension of what Avery was built on with big, experimental, and style-breaking beers,” Rupp says.
The brewery just released the 41st beer in their Barrel-Aged series, Dui Cochi, a bourbon barrel aged porter with coconut, spices and pumpkin.
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