Surly Syx?

Not that this is very hard to get, but I now have an Odell Saboteur in addition to the GI Juliet. I think it is excellent if anyone hasn't had it.

Just had an Odell Shenanigans - not their best attempt at a Wild Ale.

 

There's no way I would open a bottle of a 15% beer this shortly after it was bottled. This stuff needs to sleep for a year or more before anyone can begin to know what it really has to offer. Right now it's just fire in a bottle. Mine is already in a dark corner of the cellar waiting for it's moment to come.

 

as is mine next week i will give it a try on tap

 

That's why I like having two bottles. One now to experience the hoppy booziness and one for after it smoothed out. Ideally, I would have like six bottles, and have one now and then one each year for the net five years. Unfortunately, I can't afford six of them.

 

You really are missing out if you don't try it as it is.

 

I can't stop laughing... the OP thinks Furious is an IPA. I'll never stop laughing. if you could even classify it by a style it would be an amber. don't believe me, conjure up Todd and ask him.
FYI - mccallum and I just split a St. Giliose the other weekend. Brett is a yeast, not a bacteria... buggs are generally referring to bacteria such as Lacto, pedio, entero, aceto. i'm sure some lacto creaped into the barrels and I have seen that white labs puts lacto in their brett C cultures so there maybe some in there, but 5 was in no way supposed to be some lambic clone or sour bomb.... its a wine aged dark ale with fig notes, leather, some tartness, and pinot. Vinous and dark fruit if you want to be generic in description.
I couldn't even get past the halfway point of the first page of this post. sorry, but you appear to have no clue. I was sort of getting a few of your points, but they are just too exagerated.

 

Today my little brother who would rather drink bud light Lime than anything craft texted me a picture of a Surly Syx bottle sitting on his kitchen counter here in Iowa! He then said that his mother in law picked it up for him in the cities yesterday because she was at a store and was told it was a hot item. He has never heard of Surly brewing and had no idea what Syx is! I told him what he had was a great bottle of beer and it was special I begged him to put it somewhere dark and cool and let it mellow for a while. ( so I can break into his house and steal it from him) he said he was going to drink it ASAP! I swear to God if I find out he drain poured it because it didn't agree with his bud light pallet I will beat him to death! Some people have all the luck I would love to have a just a little taste of this stuff! But now I have to try to sleep tonight knowing a whole bottle of the great brew is about to be squandered!!

 

your brother is not going to know what hit him.

 

Sleep well knowing that Syx won't be drinkable for another couple years. Even then it may still be a drainpour. Surly Syx defines the phrase "hot mess". I hope Surly Eight is just Syx with appropriate age on it.

Seriously, find it on tap and ask for a sample. If you can get ahold of a bottle, put it in the back of your cellar and forget about it.

 

If they don't do "10% beers" what the hell are Abrasive, Darkness, Three, and Syx?
If they "don't do barrel-aged"...well, you just aren't paying attention, they've done a ton of barrel-aged. I'd say Todd is in love with wood-aging, as in Smoke, and Syx, and all the bourbon barrel -variations and the spirals that go in the casks.
People have been pretty polite to you so far, but you have no idea what you're talking about.

 

I'm the one who originally added Furious to the database, and listed it as an "amber/red ale". So many people complained that it was too hoppy to be called an "amber/red", Todd wrote to me to ask if I'd have it reclassified as an "American IPA", just to keep the clamor down.

 

Bender is not in any way shape or form a "Ho-hum brown ale." The first time I tried it, Omar said it was an "American brown ale", probably because that was the easiest way to sell it to someone. But, Todd called it an "Oatmeal brown porter", but no one knows what a "brown porter" is, and you can't forget about the Belgian Special B malts that make it remind me of a dubbel once in a while. Bender is terrifically complex. After all, it's what happens when substance meets smooth.

 

Also, your final point about Omar keeping Todd in some box to maximize margin is so off the mark it's ridiculous. you have no idea. you have no clue at all. It is to laugh.

 

He speaks! Guess somebody hit a nerve, Al??

And on the mess/aging subject. If you can afford it and swing it, I see nothing wrong with cracking one of these 'fresh,' no matter how 'hot' it might be. It's beer! It's an experience! I shared one with my family, and it proved to be a great point of conversation for a night. My mom loved it. My dad said it wasn't beer. I got a good buzz and was happy I've brought my family into this great hobby. Anyone who stands on their 'it's not even drinkable, put it in the corner for two years' soapbox needs to just mellow a bit.

 

I think he admitted to being a bit or a lot drunk when he said some of that stuff, oops.

 

Any idea as to which store she was in at the time? I was witness to a very similar scenario the other day...

 

Curious which surly beers you feel are brewed "to style"

Todd has a forte.
It is taking classic european style ales and putting a twist on them that gets them to transcend the genre or to modernize or americanize them. Just like in the culinary world, American chef's take simple classic dishes from europe and spin them into American masterpieces. If Omar let him GO CRAZY... wait, pretty sure Omar lets him do whatever he wants, and he does what he is best at.
few examples
Bitter Brewer - a new twist on a simple english bitter, huge glacier punch at flameout. Marmelade and scone
SurlyFest - not really an octoberfest, but a twisted American remake of one I guess you could say. it Sure tastes good in october
Bender - brown porter style (pretty much extinct now days) using oatmeal and some generous hopping takes this to a place it hasn't been
Darkness - russian imperial stout - Todd has done a few different things with this beer such as generous hopping in 2009 or lowering the roast and using (i'm pretty sure anyway) special B to get more of that belgian fruit character.
Hell, cynicale, furious, Schadenfruede... the list goes on. All creative and artistic representations of classic beer styles, all very well brewed with impecable quality.

so in the end, I think people are just forgetting what good beer is. its not barrel aging and making things BIG or outrageious or super sour or super hopped. It's about making well crafted beers that can be drank for different occasions.

 

I've always felt Bender was more porter than brown. I've also been told that's a laughable notion.

 

Perhaps so, Cory, and not just because I'm an unabashed Surly Fanboy.
What might have set me off most is the OP's inability to appreciate any subtlety or nuance, and lack of appreciation for what Surly has done for the brewing community at large around here.
Further, he makes a perfect example of what many people hate about websites like this, it's users and their opinions. These longtime beer fans, usually grumpy old men, or grumpy at heart, bemoan the lack of session beers on the Top 100 list, and often recognized by the cry of "where are the pilsners?" Many of them are home-brewers, quite accomplished, in fact, and boast of their medals, ribbons, and trophies. Their cantankerous nature, however, makes them shun human contact, and are forced to craft session beers at home, due to a lack of friends with whom to drink the bigger, bolder beers. They often inhabit their mother's basement, and spend most of their time on the internet quarreling with other beer lovers, who know far less than them about absolutely everything. "You don't appreciate balance!", they will bellow over their keyboards. "You can only taste hops and alcohol! You haven't been to Germany! Look at my shiny ribbons!"
And he will rail against Surly, they of the flabby Darkness, and the overhopped and underbrewed Furious, when lo and behold, they very species he contends with on the web gripes loudly and drunkenly about how un-bold and non-adventurous he finds that brewery. Furious is a bomb of malt. An 8% oak-aged Baltic Porter is "Who cares?". They don't do enough barrel-aging. (Quick quiz: what production brewery did barrel-aging locally before Surly? The answer after this.) They don't make enough 10%+ beers! A brettanomyces brewed wild/sour ale just isn't sour enough, and is "a joke"! Nothing is good enough.
And I think on the man in the basement with the carboy decked with ribbons, and he laughs.

Does everything have to be over-the-top with people like OP? Is it ever enough?
And, can we imagine a market where a brewery can be profitable making no workhorse, every-day drinkable brews, and all they ever put out is a gigantic experiment that blows away every mind, and which no one can find on the shelves, and few can afford?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

 

I have no idea sorry.