Beer Review: Cigar City’s Marshal Zhukov’s Double Envelopment

Name: Marshal Zhukov’s Double Envelopment
Brewing Company: Cigar City Brewing
Location: Tampa, FL
Style: Stout – Double / Imperial
ABV: Tennessee Avenue Beer Hall in Atlantic City, NJ
ABV: 11.8%

An outstanding, unique barrel-aged stout that should be on every stout lovers “to find” list.

From the Cigar City’s landing page for the beer:

This Russian Imperial Stout is dedicated to Georgy Zhukov, arguably one of the finest generals of World War II, and to the double envelopment maneuver he utilized to trap the German army at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942. This beer was divided between rum and sherry barrels, with the final blend being skewed just a bit heavier on the rum barrels. Rum barrels have added a pronounced spiciness and texture to the beer, while sherry barrel-aging has imparted flavors of dark cherry and blackberry. The base beer’s recipe has been tweaked a bit over the last few years, with some of the roastiness taking a back seat to dark chocolate flavors and sweetness. Other than that, it’s a straightforward barrel-aged version of Zhukov’s. .

Marshal Zhukov’s is Cigar City’s flagship Stout, a Russian Imperial Stout as it so happens. Like many breweries tend to do for special releases, they take this stout and age it some oak barrels. But not the typical Bourbon barrels, the folks at Cigar City decided blend two versions, the rum barrel-aged and sherry barrel-aged to create something unique. Or at least I suppose that is the aim of such a brewing and blended stout.

What are the results?

The beer is very dark, as is expected. The aroma is very pleasant and inviting, I smell a sweet booziness with the sherry a little more prominent than the rum. I’m not a sherry drinker by any means, but I really like the aroma of this beer.

The first taste blows me away. The roasted malt elements of the stout are potent and pleasing, but the barrel character emerges very pleasantly. The rum brings the added sweetness. With rum being fermented and distilled from sugar, that makes sense. Then the sherry element comes in, which brings maybe a hint of dryness, a little bit of a sweet almost sour tang? Not unpleasant by any means, quite the opposite!

Since this is an 11.8% stout, I take my time with the beer. Being in a cool bar with a good friend and good food on the way, I was real happy to just relax and enjoy this complex beer. As it warms, the barrel characteristics become more prominent, but they don’t drown out the base elements of the stout. The barrel elements blend into one, dynamic flavor adjunct that is extremely pleasing, the sweetness from the rum barrel is complemented by some of the dried fruit elements in the sherry character.

This beer is one of the more unique barrel-aged stouts I’ve ever had. If I can have any slight on the beer, and it is minor, it is that the body was slightly thin. Not what I’d expect from such a high ABV stout.

I haven’t had too many brews from Cigar City (I’ve liked what I’ve had), and only a beer or two aged in these kinds of barrels and definitely not a blend of beers aged in these kinds of barrels. In other words, I don’t have a beer to compare this against, in exacting terms, so I’ll just say this. Marshal Zhukov’s Double Envelopment is a dynamite stout, it possesses the great elements of a high ABV stout, but the two barrels used in the construction of the final beer bring something new and unique to the liquid. This is a beer well-worth seeking out.

Bottles of the beer are available only through Cigar City’s El Catador Club, which is their Members Only barrel-aged beer club. Somehow, a keg of the beer made its way to the Tennessee Avenue Beer Hall in Atlantic City, NJ, where I enjoyed the beer before enjoying a night of All Elite Wrestling Dynamite with a good friend over at Boardwalk Hall.

Highly Recommended, link to 4.5 bottle cap untappd rating check in.

Beyond a Shadow of a Stout (Level 81)