Sweater Wether
Bellwether Brewing Co.

16.9oz wax-capped bottle, purchased at the brewery the weekend it was released (around a month ago) for around $16-17. Described on the label as a "dry stout" aged in "a Westland distillery whiskey barrel."

Took a lot of chipping away at the wax with a chef's knife to get enough purchase with my bottle opener to get this one opened. When I have to do this with a product from, say, Fremont , this can result in a severely shaken up bottle. This was not the case here, as I kind of feared. I've often found beers from bellwether can lack of carbonation, especially take-home examples. So, when I poured this into a snifter. It poured coal black color with a very bubbly looking it's fairly thin dark beige head. Said had dropped rather quickly for something so recently shaking about and then poured. I know that it's not unusual for a high-alcohol beer such as this to have somewhat minimal head, but I suspected this was more of a carbonation issue.

Roasty and sweet nose to this, perhaps a bit more roasty than I expected for something aged in a bourbon barrel.

Roasty and dry, yet sweet, with notes of brown sugar and vanilla. The booziness one would expect from such a beer is present, but at a lower amplitude than I would expect for such a beer so recently released.

Quite a thin, watery body to this, despite the low carbonation. I guess that's a good thing, because it doesn't make it as oppressively difficult to drink as a thick uncarbonated beer would be, but it ain't great.

This isn't a terrible beer, but it's not what I look for when I spend this kind of money, especially when with not a whole lot more money, I can pick up a really outstanding similar style beer from Fremont. Like a number of beers I've had from Bellwether, it sounded good, but kinda fell short. I'd probably be happy to drink a half pour of this on draft, as it's almost there, but I don't think I'll go for future bottle releases of this.