May 11, 2016

Brothers Brewing Smooth Sailor

Brothers Brewing Resolute is an outstanding example of a barrel-aged stout — smooth, decadent and full-flavored. Smooth Sailor sees the brewery set their base robust porter is the same barrels used to house its bigger relative. Now, the question is, which barrels are actually used for this particular beer — Resolute was a numbered release with a portion aged in Heaven Hill barrels and others in A. Smith Bowman barrels?

Regardless of which series of barrels this beer sat it, it probably wasn’t there for too long, as the bourbon and wood influence isn’t overly strong. It’s just strong enough to cause a competition amongst the other elements within this beer. The Madagascar vanilla beans add an interesting touch, but I don’t think a robust porter was the right base beer for this particular endeavor. Everything from the roasted malt, dark coffee trait, barrel influence and those vanilla beans all want their time in the spot light and are unwilling to step aside for others to have their moment.

Smooth Sailor isn’t a bad brew and perhaps some time in the cellar would do it some good, allowing everything to mellow a bit and come together. The bottle I had was packaged January 12th of this year and cracked open just two months later. Perhaps it’s just a bit immature at the moment as it does lack some refinement. If I see another bottle, I might be tempted to grab one to cellar. I’d like to see the flavors on this one get along a bit better.