Surly Bourbon Bender

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

(Draft) Pours an amber-brown body with medium beige head. Aroma of toastiness, rye bread, vanilla, fig, and chocolate. Flavor of oak, vanilla, toasted/caramel malts, rye, and light chocolate with a dry finish.

FoBAB 2007: Dark brown with a fading head. The nose detects vanilla, walnut, fig, plum, caramel and bready vapours. The taste starts twangy and lactic like with a rich bready layer of malt under in all. The finish is oaky, nutty, and quite dry for a brown ale. The mouth feel is sticky and soft and as mentioned quite dry upon the finish. Not too shabby but I would have liked to see a bit more malt driven character.

First beer sampled on draught at the ABR 07 in Minneapolis, MN. Pours a semi-clear dark brown brew with a fast dissolving tan head that leaves behind an off-white head and some film on the brew top. Aroma of distinct bourbon and aged oak wood with a touch of dark caramel malt. Taste is creamy, smooth, slightly syrupy with more coconut and bourbon flavors than hops and malt. Finish has a slight hop bitterness that quickly disappears to a light bourbon aftertaste.

On tap at FoBAB 5. Poured clear, deep reddish-brown with a light cap of beige head. The aroma picked up sweet caramel and chocolates with lesser oak and vanilla.. not much bourbon was perceptible.. lighter and quite complex (especially from a brown ale!). The flavor had vanilla, sweeter chocolates, toasted oak, and marshmallows throughout.. very tasty.. drier and a touch light right at the finish. Sweet and very enjoyable on the palate.. lighter-bodied, complex, and a great feel throughout.

Batch 1 aged in a bourbon barrel for over 5 months and served on draught at the American Beer Fest on 6/16/06.
Not surprisingly, the beer has a rapidly fizzling, beige head that produces some light legs, but has no real lasting power, the mid gravity beer having sat in bourbon for quite some time. Still, a medium-low clarity shows low filtration and the body is a deep charcoal black-brown with mahogany/chestnut hints when held to the light. Again, I’m not concerned, nor is it a flaw that a wood-aged, draught beer dosent produce much head.
Crunchy coffee and lines of vanilla-streaked wood caress the nose, as you fall deeply in to a puddle of semi-sweet chocolate. Grainy, unpasteurized maltiness keeps an edge on the aroma, as does the barrel-aging. But though the barrel is definitely strong in the nose, it’s not too strong, I don’t think. Slick, nutty yeastiness calms things down on the end. Maybe some lightly damp, green leafiness still stirs, but the hops are mostly gone from here by now.
The flavor combines cola, chocolate, light-roast coffee and almonds all in to a complex, but soft and unchallenging balance of character. Some sticky date/toffee hints and more fresh, unpasteurized yeastiness. The barrel comes out, more audaciously than in the nose, adding a slight bit of acidity and certainly some bourbon and char flavors. Honestly though, I think the bourbon actually works against the natural complexity I read about in others reviews, not to mention this near-5% abv ale seems to have lost all of its sparkle sitting in the barrel. The draught carbonation is not enough to bring it back, and the texture comes off VERY loose, and quite watery on the end, the flavors trailing off in to a chocolate-bourbon sweetness.
Very well-made beer, they just needed to either, A) serve it bottle conditioned bottles or B) naturally carbonate the keg. As is, the poor texture takes all of the fun out of it. Alcohol is not apparent.

ABR 2006. Surly beers can be hard to classify, and "brown ale" hardly does this beer justice so if someone has a better classification, like American pale ale, please submit the correction. The bourbon aroma is on the light side and not overpowering like some bourbon beers. The aroma gets stronger as it warms, however. Lots of bourbon in the flavor and the intense hops of the standard Bender have mellowed.

Dark Brown Color with Off White Head. Bourbon and Coconut on the Nose...Along with Subtle Sweet Malt. The Bourbon Flavor Bulies the Fine Flavor That Bender Normally Presents.. But a Brown Can Only Do So Much.

on tap at DLD 08. thanks to whoever walked about with a growler of this. pours brownw ith tan head. a bourbon and nutty aroma. flavors are nutty, bourbon, caramel. and a real smooth finish. a solid beer and it actually works. bender shows he can be used well in many ways.