After much anticipation, I finally tried my first Surly Brew at the Muddy Pig in St. Paul (who still haven't updated their website in almost a year....grrr). The Bender is a brown ale with some serious hop overtones--but not too much to make you miss the fact that it's a brown. Surly describes it as "an amalgamation of styles: brown/porter/apa," although I can't say I noticed the porter influence. The knowledgable staff at the Pig told me it's selling like crazy, and this is no surprise; Surly is doing a great job marketing the stuff, with coasters and glasses already in the bars, and a distinct tap handle (check out the pics of the handles here and learn a bit about them!).On tap it had a great head and a sweet nose, and a very complex palate on the tongue. The closest thing I can compare it to is Bell's Best Brown, which is, um, one of the best browns around. Of course, Bender does stand out on its own. It's a great beer, and hopefully they'll move to bottles pretty soon. I'm looking forward to trying the Furious more than ever.
2 comments:
I think the word that you wanted to use is spelled "compliment", unless you meant something else.
I thought I raised you better than that!
Well I didn't like that sentence anyway, so I changed it all together. Thanks for the complement!
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