Surly Bender

Likely my first Brown ale. Served on tap at Ike’s in the Minneapolis airport. Went nice with my steak dinner. Nice caramel taste.

Can, courtesy sdeth. Pours a dark caramel red color, big white head, creamy white lacing. Caramel malt aromas, brown sugar, toffee, fairly strong and aromatic overall. Big roasted caramel malts pound the tongue. Sugar, chocolate. Some hops in the finish. There’s some coffee in there, too, albeit off in the distant. Bright, thin-bodied, but satisfying, and very easy to drink. One of the better browns around.

Poured a reddish brown color with a small, light tan head that left nice lacing on the glass. Aroma of caramel malts, roast, cocoa, nuts, and brown sugar. Taste of caramel, brown sugar, citrus fruits, some pine, light roasted malts, and a bitter hop finish. Thanks Tom!

From a can. Pours with almost no head. Not viscous at all. Deep brown, barely allows like through. Smells like malt, coffee, burnt toast. Delicious, rich, and complex. Flavor is malt, barley, coffee, and molasses. The best part of the beer is the way it fills your whole mouth. The flavor is greatly enriched by chewing the beer and allowing every part of your tongue to taste it. One glass lasted an hour and a half and was enjoyable all the way down. Here’s hoping Surly begins to take off. Can’t wait to try Darkness this winter.

Somehow I’ve never tried this one. Near black pour with a medium sized light tan head. Aroma is chocolate and a bit of hops. Flavor is heavily malted, lots of toasty malts, molasses, coffee, chocolate, vanilla. Finishes creamy. This was pretty darn good for a brown, I usually don’t like that style.

My first Surly beer and hopefully not the last....great beer. Pours a super dark brown with a small head. Aroma is really nice. Roasty, nutty, some malts and coffee. Flavor is just creamy and smooth as hell. Good coffee sweetness, nice malt. Damn this is good. MORE PLEASE!

I picked this up on a recent trip home to Minnesota. My first impression was "that’s nice", nothing too special. It wasn’t really a fair trial. We were at an outdoor family get together and I was just drinking it out of the can. Not the best way to really judge it. Tonight I’m here at home just enjoying a fantastic, smooth, full bodied brew. I really like the amount of roasting they’ve done on this. Wow! I would have bought more to bring home if I had actually given it a fair trial. My mistake. I’ll have to get someone to send me a few more for further testing!

A huge and massive THANK YOU for lb4lb and pintsize for just happening to have one and giving it to me, thank you. 16 oz. can poured into my happy stein- poured semi transparent when held to light source, very dark brown with red tint in color, off brown ring around the glass with some lacing for a head. Aroma of nuts (walnuts?), finely roasted malt that was not burned to a crisp, brown sugar, and pure beergoodness that makes you want to swim in it. HIts the mouth with a low-wide body, coffee like taste hits the tongue at first, sweetness the like of brown sugar comes wandering in the middle and lingers, finish is very smooth, solid, and asks nicely to have another sip with a twinkle her eyes. I am a sucker for a great brown ale, and this one did not clear the fence, it cleared the stadium!!! HOME RUN!!!