Beer: Surly Brewing's Furious
Brewery Location: Brooklyn Center, MN
Beer Style: American IPA
Serving Style: Can
ABV: 6.20%
Beer for a glass, from a can. That is quite the mantra that Surly has come up with. It has been a struggle for many micro brewers to convert the masses over to cans. Several companies like Oskar Blues Brewing company, makers of Dale's Pale Ale, have successfully served their beers in cans to the public. Many craft beer enthusiasts are still very reluctant though to drink beer out of a can, but canned beer has a longer shelf life, better protection from UV light, and is usually cheaper to manufacture, and new technology lines the can with plastic to protect from any metallic taste.
I've been trying to get this beer for over a year, and I was finally lucky enough to trade for it. Surly is a small regional brewer in Minnesota. I am pretty sure Surly is only available in Minnesota. They have made a name for themselves with this beer gaining national fame among hopheads, and another beer called "Darkness" (a Russian imperial stout) is rated as one of the top beers in the world according to BeerAdvocate and Ratebeer.
The beer pours a rustic brown with light tan highlights when held up to the light. A one finger head caps this beer off, but the head quickly dissipated and was almost gone by the time I was ready to take a picture of it. It left patchy lacing on the sides of the imperial pint glass. You can smell the aromatics coming off of this as you pour the beer. Huge wafts of fresh grapefruit, pine, ripe citrus fruit, toffee and caramel malt scent try to even things out. The first sip brings on huge flavors of fresh grapefruit, fruity esters, and a very dominant malt base. According to the can the malt is direct from Scotland. This beer has a bite on it that is approaching double IPA proportions. The hop flavor is in your face, but the biscuity malt reigns it in just right. The mouthfeel is smooth and medium bodied. Drinkability is very good on this beer. It isn't the most well balanced IPA, but I like the different take Furious brought to the table.
I enjoyed this beer a great deal. I will trade for it every opportunity that I can. It isn't my favorite IPA, but if I had better access to this it would go into my regular rotation most likely. A nice treat if you can get your hands on this beer.
Cheers!
Matt
2 comments:
I talked with David at Warbird in Ft. Wayne about the topic of canned beers. Better beer fans just can't seem to get their head around the whole canned beer does not equal bad beer concept. He was having trouble getting places to sell his beer because they thought that canned beer should be cheap. He had to change to bottles just to get past that nonsense.
I think it works if the beers reputation exceeds the stigma of drinking it out of can. Surly and Oskar blues have built a reputation of amazing beer out of a can. Warbird makes some great beer, but they haven't created the buzz for themselves that other can companies have.
Craft beer is towing a very thin line right now. It is much like the article that Chris posted in. Craft beer is getting a high level snobbery when it comes to cans vs. bottles. It is similar to nice vineyards trying to use twist off caps instead of corks in theirs wines. Regardless of how much better the twist off caps actually work people still won't use them because they associate class with a cork, and the same with class with a bottle.
I don't care, I would drink beer sold in mason jars if it tasted good.
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