Surly Oak Aged Two

Brewed by Surly Brewing Company
Style: Fruit Beer
Brooklyn Center, Minnesota USA

Date: 08/09/2008
Mode: Draft
Source: Brewfest, Great Taste

Appearance: mudy dark brown, scant head,
Aroma: rich chocolate aroma, lots of earthy oak, only a hint of sweetness from some dark caramel,
Flavor: rich dark caramel and chocolate flavor, lots of oak, light oaky tartness, long light bitter finish from the earth and oak,

Aroma: 6/10; Appearance: 6/10; Flavor: 7/10; Palate: 6/10; Overall: 13/20
Rating: 3.2/5.0
Drinkability: 6/10
Score: **+/4

on tap at GTMW ’08. i’ll preface this by saying i wasn’t a fan of the regular version. this didn’t seem all the different, perhaps the aging helped add in the cohesion a bit but the oak didn’t play a big role in this.

Tap GTMW 2008 Aroma is chocolate, bourbon/oak, malts, and some fruit. Appearance is dull, murky brown with scant head. Taste is very cranberry, oak, lots of dark maltiness, sweetness, and a lactic sourness. Very, very nice. Finish is lactic and full. Awesome.

Sampled at Great Taste of the Midwest 2008. Pour is a hazy dark red brown. Cranberry is forward, as with the regular two. Very bitter, and IMO the oak doesn’t really work with this beer. I kind of wished the oak would be stronger, but the cranberry taste overwhelms and this almost is one dimensional.

GTMW 2008. The beer pours to a murky brown sludge with a thin light beige head. The beer tastes like a bourbon sour brown and has a very complex tartness of cranberries. The aroma is tart cranberries and brown malts. Nice tart palate. Bonus points overall for complexity that tastes pretty awesomely unique.

Great Taste 2008. I had a glass of the oak aged with cranberries next to the regular version of Two, and I must say I was significantly more impressed with this one. The other was good, but this was one of the highlights of the day. It seems I’m growing more found of the edition of tart fruits to beers these days. The color was a murky brown, almost cask like it its appearance. Notes of fall spices lead into an impressive acidity and cranberry/currant finish. One of the highlights of the day, and much more impressive than Bourbon One.

Pours like mud or melted chocolate mix very murky huge rocky tan head. Big bourbon oak and vanilla notes, mostly barreling in the aroma some light tart fruits come through but only a little here. Full well coated pal. Tart fruits that I first thought were raspberry from the sweetness but I guess are cranberries. Reminds me of sour brown after that. a light vanilla comes through some good oak dryness. Notes of bourbon in the finish and a good amount of acidity. Very nice beer.

Small sample, on tap at Great Taste of the Midwest. Consumed on 8-9-2008. Pours deep brown with a light brown hue and beige head. Pleasant, sharp, fruity, and malty aroma. The smell is more subtle than I expected. Cranberry obvious in the taste but more subdued than it is in non-oaked Two. Sour and tart sharpness. Less "stout-y," fruity, and tart than regular Two; more subtle. Full body. Thick and silky. Reasonably lively in the palate. Excellent mouthfeel. The barreling makes this a different and more subtle beer. It remains a very good one, but it lacks the flavor explosion of the original.