Surly Brewing night at Brouwers!?!?

Drinking a can of Abrasive at the moment, and damn this is some good stuff. Wish I was going to be around for the event on Saturday, but alas I will be in San Diego.

 

The taplist at Brouwers for Bigwood, as previously noted, is even more awesome in person (It appears to have a couple additions as well). One thing I wish they would consider in the future is half pours for these brews. With a lot of them over the 10% threshold, it would be really nice to be able to try more than two 14% brews.

That said, Vanilla BBOMB is absolutely sublime. Here's hoping it can be bottled at some point in the future.

 

My thoughts exactly! There were more beers that I wanted to try but did not for that exact reason. Although my bartender didn't like that idea when I mentioned it to him...as if they're not busy enough as it is.
Vanilla BBomb was a little too sweet for my palate at first, but it did seem to get better as it warmed up a bit.
Still my favorite fest of the year.

 

They usually do 3, 6, and 12oz options for Hard Liver. Would be nice if that were the case for Bigwood as well, though I understand it'd make the staff's day even more insane.

 

I think people like to make some kind of bias on which year they think is better in general. Personally, I think 2012 was balanced out pretty well with the hops and sweetness, and was one of my favorite years. I certainly enjoy the 2013, but it's drastically different to any Darkness I've had and tastes more along the lines of Dark Lord where it's very sweet.

Again, this is simply my opinion, but living in the twin cities and being involved with a lot of beer nerds, I've yet to here one say Darkness is hit or miss. Just sayin...

 

That was my anti-IPA bias talking, but you're right it's better than decent. I'm just way more into Surly's other styles.

 

The fact that both Burgundian and Brouwer's don't do tasters is fucking mind-boggling. In fact it strikes me as downright anti-beer nerd. Sup Bottleworks guys?

 

waaaaay too much traffic to deal with that.

 

I agree there's too much traffic at Brouwer's but there's definitely not at Burgundian.

 

I'd really like to go to this but I don't know that it's worth putting up with Brouwer's.

 

I'll be putting up with Brouwers for the 3rd day in a row, I'm pretty tough though...

 

How was it? Any Surly kegs blow?

 

When I left at 8 pm, Darkness and Furious were both blown. With the way people were drinking the Surly stuff, I wouldn't be surprised if Smoke, Abrasive, Pentagram, Misanthrope were all blown. The bar tenders were recommending the Misanthrope frequently.

For some reason, the one that seemed to be getting the fewest pours (I was sitting in front of the Surly taps) was Coffee Bender. Not sure why. Maybe it's just the non-hyped nature of browns and the low abv?

 

Abrasive definitely kicked last night - think it was actually the first to go

 

Eh, not an issue of being tough for me. It's more of a moral issue. I don't like to spend money in places I feel don't respect me as a customer. Brouwer's is definitely one of those places. Sometimes it can feel like I've sacrificed my dignity when I go ... which is extremely rare.

 

When is Abrasive released? I didn't know it was released yet.

 

Its a late December release so I guess we got an "early" keg.

 

well, my cans say November 15th, so it was released by then.

 

Interesting. Their website calls it late December; can't trust this internet thing at all!