The Devil's Breath
Brown Beard Brewing Co.

Taster at Brown Beard. Amber colored pour, frothy off- white head. Malty, peaty aroma, smoke. Taste is sweet and smoky, peat, malty. Peat an smoke seem like a match made in heaven.

well i appreciate and respect that these guys are doing some ambitious brews in the early days of their existence, i also have some quality concerns after this one, really rough, the first packaged beer if theirs ive had or even seen, and i wanted a lot more from it. a peated scotch ale aged on islay scotch barrel oak, a strange way to say that, as with some of their other beers, this has to be done on staves or spirals or chunks or something, soaked wood not actually ever barrel aged, i like the concept of that, and obviously with the volume limitations in here its a necessity with how big barrels are and the price, but this seems a little cheap to me, i had way way way higher hopes for this. amber in color, a little murky, and without much head after the initial pour, deep rust in tone. the nose is instantly smoke forward but also sweet and candied, a strange combination, but its cool the peat is on display, peated malt i would think, slight iodine and an acrid aspect, intense, so you have to like this sort of thing, massively earthy, a little alcoholic, and with toffee and brown sugar sweetness running wild. the flavor is harsh on the alcohol, harsh on the smoke, and so sweet it sticks to my teeth way past the swallow, we didnt even end up finishing this. the peat is cool, but the wood aspect and the scotch come through at a sort of surface level, they arent cohesive with the base beer the way they should be, and it seems both immature and under fermented to me. the wood is subtle but adds some vanilla, the scotch part hits on band aid, wet soil, and freshy extinguished campfire, boozy too. the peat and the smoke in general make this somewhat astringent, which really clashes with all the sugar, and the overall refinement of this is pretty rough. the idea and maybe even the recipe are better than the execution by a considerable margin, and this really needs some work. an early miss for these guys, but i love the ambition. hopefully they can find a way to elevate this sort of thing because nobody else around here is doing anything like this, but this is on the edge of undrinkable...