Tuesday, July 17, 2007

My New Favorite Canned Beer - Surly Furious

Surly Brewing Company (Brooklyn Center, MN) is a young and unique brewery. They have about 3 standard beers they can, at least from what I've been able to tell, and I've been really wondering what a good beer out of a can tastes like. Surly Furious is the 4th rated American IPA on BA, so it's gotta be good. After popping the top I realized what a good canned beer tastes like. It tastes as good and better than some bottled IPA's. Surly packs this beer with a very generous amount of malt, almost putting it into the DIPA category. However they keep the alcohol fairly low, 6%, though the same cannot be said for the IBU's (100). The beer pours pretty dark, with a bit of chill haze, but it does clear up as it warms up. The smell of this is actually best if you put your nose next to the can opening. Sweet malt, citrus and pine all try to rush out the tiny opening. Other than tasting really good with all the citrus and pine of a normal IPA, the things that stand out about this beer are the heavy caramel malt and the very slick mouthfeel created by the abundance of malt. The only flaw to my palate is that it overshines a lot of the carbonation, so that when it rolls over the tongue it feels under-carbonated.

Though I'd never had a beer from a can that doesn't start with the letter B, M, or C, this was a great reminder that good beer can come in aluminum (though it can take as long as 500 years for an aluminum can to degrade, so please be responsible and recycle :)

3 comments:

Jason h said...

Hey! i'm going to cali this sunday.. gonna be there for a week, this is the site i was talking about where i made the extra cash. later!

Ben said...

Surly cans 2 regular beers. CynicAle is canned from Memorial Day to Labor Day. I've always got plenty in the refrigerator.

Steve said...

I should have gotten that CynicAle while I could. Sounds great.