Surly Furious

Brewed by Surly Brewing Company
Style: India Pale Ale (IPA)
Brooklyn Center, Minnesota USA

From a 16oz Can. Pours a mostly transparent, deep caramel amber with shades of braeburn apple skin, topped with a tall layer of foamy beige head. Clean hoppy aroma with notes of fresh grapefruit zest, watermelon rind, lemon pith, and bitter planty herbs. A hint of mango skins as well, backed by a graham cracker biscuity malt base. Light bodied, creamy carbonation. The carbonation is a bit thin and un-natural; a bit more crispness would help liven the palate up some. The malt body that greets the tongue has a great caramel sweetness though it doesn’t get too sweet or sticky and fits the light body quite well. A bit of spicy centennial-like tarocco orange squeezed over a teething biscuit; sounds weird, but I like it. Clever and dramatic in the way it starts sweet and malty, but ends dry and bitter - the extremety of the palate sensations is quite remarkable. Finish is long and dry, with a great sprucy bitterness left lingering. Thanks, Tom!

Mildly soapy and oxized hop nose with a touch of diacetyl. Astringent and vegetative palate with very bitter mid-palate.

Tap, Acadia Cafe. Medium amber, light haze. Huge hop melange aroma, though clearly prominently featuring amarillo. Loads of citrus and exotic fruits, rather intense. Lean and mean. Malt character was somewhere between medium and "thinnish" and probably closer to the latter. Bitterness was solid and not overpowering, but the hop flavor, which was a tiny bit clamorous, completely overshadowed by the hop juice character of this one. Perhaps I’m not worthy, but I wanted to feel just a bit more heft and balance to my hopmonsters. But I am very excited to see someone new on the MN scene and eagerly await more releases from them.

Pours a clear reddish amber color. Big offwhite head. Pine, resin aroma. Some light fruit smells as well. Taste is smooth, muted hops, malt back bone, bitter finish. Nice full bodied beer. I would have pegged this as a double with all the sweetness going on. Word up to incutrav.

Valley Brew tasting Feb 2007 - Aroma is alcohol and subtle hops. Flavor is citrus hops, but not as strong as others note here. Curious of cans age since my sample seems subduded. Smooth and balanced this is a tasty IPA for sure, but I didn’t get the big hops.

A superb, lean IPA ramped up for maximum bitterness and yet incredibly drinkable. For all the talk about the malts on the can, I was blown away by how supple and thin this was - in the best sense. Australian pales ales always fatten out the hop profile with lots of sticky sugars, but this is all about the hops. 99 IBUs and yet I could imagine seeing off a few of these. Would love to see something like this here in Oz. (Can courtesy of Oslo - thanks buddy - at the Milson Point park session September 09)

On tap at Hopleaf, Chicago. I showed up expecting Darkness, but this was there instead. No matter. A solid, hoppy IPA that went down so nice amid the overcrowded bar. Total citrus taste. Wonderful.

16 ounce can

This is probably the second best beer I have ever run across in can form. It competes in every way with Dale’s Pale Ale (except that you get 16 ounces per can instead of 12). I think I like this one a little better. I look forward to the day that Surly escapes the confines of the Twin Cities to reach Wisconsin and beyond. This should be the first thing they export.

Aroma / Appearance - An exploding head cascases out of the can into the glass. Initially there is only an inch of liquid and several inches of head but it settles over the course of a few minutes to the opposite. The body reminds me of rusty water. As I drank it, layers of lacing clung to the sides like layers of sediment tracing the buildup of a cliff. Hints of freshly mown grass, melon, grapefruit and wheat highlight a bright nose.

Flavor / Palate - Caramel and grapefruit precede a bitter explosion that washes across the tongue. When it fades traces of semisweet baker’s chocolate chips unfold into a nutty finish. The last traces of the glass tasted a little like coffee grounds which was a bit odd. On the whole, though, it was extremely enjoyable. I’m glad I have two more cans left. I will definitely be picking up more up this next time I go up to the Minneapolis area.