Surly Bender

Brewed by Surly Brewing Company
Style: Brown Ale
Brooklyn Center, Minnesota USA

Can out of the cooler while camping Labor Day weekend. Pours much darker than a "Brown Ale". Flavor is much more deep than the style. Bready, malty, chocolate and a slick mouth feel. Quite nice and another great effort. Update 2/8/2008 - Can pours dark black with a decent head and lots of lace. The aroma is yeasty, dark chocolate, roasty, lactic, and coffee. The flavor is roasty, very dark chocolate, ale fruit notes - increases as it warms, some light hops, nutty (oats?), and vanilla. The palate is rich and slick. Overall, much better than when camping. I like it. Good session.

(Can) Pours a dark mahogany body with a spare off-white head. Aroma of roasted malt, nuts, and cocoa. Flavor of cocoa, coffee, caramel, and raosted malt with a nicely carbonated mouthfeel and dry finish.

Canned sample via oakbluff. Ruby brown in colour with moderate carbonation. Aromas of dark toffee, roasted nuts, a bit of green hops, and light milk chocolate. Caramel and toffee notes upfront in the mouth, before some interesting bitter dark chocolate and earth elements clean things up. A bit of an oat flavor too. The mothfeel is quite interesting too, smooth to start before some astringent roast and hop bitterness finish things off. Very good for a not-so-favorite style for me.

Courtesy of Styles

Can: The aroma consists of chocolate, caramel, light berries, and a hint of nuttiness. It’s a reddish-brown with some transparency and a small beige head. The flavor starts with caramel, berries, and chocolate. Finishes with light roasted nut notes and a hint of earthy bitterness. Medium bodied with moderate carbonation.

Can- Pours a darker brown cola color. Full of noble hops and grass charachter. Drinking is smooth, nice chocolate malts and oats add to the body. Some slight papery flavors just slightly add. Great finish. Nice beer. Very cool can.

Thanks to HawkEye19 for this beer. Poured mahogany with a fizzy off-white head. Aroma of piney earthy hops wtih a bit of fruity sweetness. Flavor is surprisingly dry and hoppy up front, with notes of earthy grassy hops. Flavor shifts a bit to a light fruitiness with a bit of molasses... not as chocolatey as the can advertises, but more reminiscent of a doppelbock. In fact, as I drank this, I couldn’t help but wonder how close I’d come to the taste if I mixed a slightly above-par session IPA with a decent doppelbock. The sweetness came out more as it warmed, adding layers to the complexity. I imagine that if I had drunk this cold, I would have gotten nothing but dry bland hops. Became very complex and tasty as it approached room temperature, but the somewhat one-dimensional introduction to it I got when I poured it at cellar temperature kept my overall impression only mildly above par. A beer I will have to revisit as I go through the four-pack.

Pours a dark brown with a well retained light tan head. Smells of dark malts and dark fruits. A little bit sweet smelling. Taste is quite nutty, a little bit of roast and dark malts make up the flavors. very roasty on the palate, with a slightly bitter aftertaste. Get a small dose of some caramel in the finish with some nuts and malts. Pretty good brown, especially for a canned beer. I find myself liking more and more canned beers, as i try new ones.

16oz can-pours a retaining creamy light brown head and dark brown with ruby red. Aroma is medium/dark malt-sweet/chocolate, dark fruit-cherry, faint citrus hops. Taste is lots of malt and hops, nicely balance with a lot going on. Medium/dark malt-sweet/chocolate, nutty, dark fruit-cherry, faint citrus hops. OK carbonation.