Surly Coffee Bender

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

A- Pours a deep brownish red letting almost no light through. Creamy, two finger head fades with a little lacing. S- Coffee Coffee and more Coffee! Lots of roasted malt. T- Very coffee heavy all the way through slightly acidic, bitter coffee flavor is left on the tongue. M- Medium bodied with medium to low carbonation. D- This is very flavorful for the amount of alcohol. I personally felt the acidity and raw coffee flavor was a little too much to handle but i’m sure coffee lovers will get their fix on this one.

Can

Pours a very dark brown with ruby highlights and a nice thick long-lived tan head. Sweet oats and coffee aroma. Serious coffee flavor in here, almost sour (in a brown-ale way) flavors that recall an iced coffee without milk. Coffee flavors totally drive the late end, mingling well with some hops, and putting together an all-around kick-ass coffee beer. Also poundable, with is not a flavor in the least.

Holy cow! This beer has more coffee in it than any other that I’ve ever had! Really delicious, and very intense, but still complementary to the notes of the original Bender.

Traded for on DLD to a random stranger sporting a cooler.Smells like old Folgers that’s been sitting in a freezer for when relatives come to town.Pour is a dark brown with a lake pollution head. Flavor is an almost sour- mash- old- coffee -that’s -been- sitting since -morning kind of filth with a touch of acidity. As I drink it it gives love back to me like a dog recently beaten and looking for forgiveness, so I try to love it back and find only a "like" for said dog...A smattering of hops and bitter coffee show themselves toward the finish leaving me to question "why didnt I drink this in the morning?

Boo-ya! COFFEE! Yum. Not sure how this is good, but it is. Really good. Lots of roasted barley taste which merges well with roasted coffee beans. Some vanilla flavors present. Smells like coffee, not beer. Tastes more like coffee than beer. This is a breakthrough. Is there caffiene in it? Very creamy. I’m amazed this works, and equally surprised that more people are NOT writing bad reviews because this seems to be either an 1) I love it beer!, or 2) this is disgusting beer. For me it is the former.

Thanks to rustychiles for the share on this. The aroma of this beer is sublime. It is cold high grade coffee. Taste is much the same, only carbonated. On the palate it finishes a bit chalky, which leads me to think they have water profile issues or the high level of coffee has taken its toll on the acidity of the beer or something. Anyway, it just isn’t quite right. I think this might have been a better beer had the coffee been a little less present and the beer a little more present. Not once did this remind me of drinking beer, which seems wrong. Eventually my coffee connoisseur gag-reflex of good coffee gone cold kicked in and I couldn’t drink anymore. Still, pretty amazing to get that level of aroma and taste in a beer.

Can courtesy of tytoanderso. Pours a nice brown with a nice light brown head. Aroma is super duper awesome coffee, roast, malt, water. Flavor is coffee, coffee, coffee. Finishes a little chalky but still very good. Nice brew.

Can with thanks to skyview. Pours a medium brown with a thick and frothy tan head. Aromas are of stale coffee... like the stuff that has been sitting around for too long. That smell buries any other aromas that might be present. The beer tastes a lot like a fizzy and cold coffee. There is a bit of hops that pokes through in the finish, but for the most part, this tastes like a coffee beer... but not like an imperial stout or something where the coffee compliments and plays off the other flavors. Here it buries them alive and walks away from the grave.