Did Surly's Todd the Axe Man Change?

Actually I am a Surly fan, have been for 10+ years now. (Hence my frustration.) Todd was once easily a top 5 IPA for me, that's no longer the case. From a beer standpoint I find it to be far less flavorful then in the past. Essentially I agree with the OP's assessment. It's no longer as well balanced, malt flavors are almost non-existent, citrus and tropical fruit notes are no longer as potent, resinous pine character now dominates.

 

I would agree they have their fair share of stinkers, and I haven't been inspired to pick up any of their new 4 packs, but Mad Butcher is always on my rotation.

 

He was never an owner, that is Omar. He was the head brewmaster. After he departed he founded War Pigs with help of 3 Floyds and Mikkeller.

 

Credit where due... I was quoting (and agreeing with) @islay

 

I'd never made the connection with Haug and WarPigs Brewing, although I should have...

 

We got an exclusive release of Todd the Axe Man in Boston a few months back and I got to try it a couple weeks old, and it was good but hardly a top rated IPA in my opinion. It was a bit malty and bitter but I was expecting that since it’s not a NE IPA. I liked it and thought it was good but def not a #1 IPA for the charts. Glad I tried it pretty fresh though. It’s not bad if you don’t want a juice bomb. It’s a good classic style IPA from back in the day I think.

 

The era of a brewer as a cult of personality in the marketing of a brewery for whatever is pretty over with and done.

 

It wasn't a cult of personality with Surly. It was a cult of skill, brashness, and creativity. Whether it is due to Haug's departure, or due to the natural evolution of a brewery as it grows from local to regional to beyond, IDK, but some of that has (or is perceived to have) departed.

 

I'll second this for sure. I love Furious, I think it's just a perfect IPA. Just recently PA got a drop of Surly so I picked up both Furious and Todd the Axeman. Furious is as great as always, but TTAM was a little underwhelming. Just my take.

 

It seems to me that a lot of brewers in the industry can follow a recipe and turn out a completely different product than another brewer. When Bill and Ashley left Prost to start Bierstadt the beers at Prost suffered terribly, but the recipes never changed.

 

Uh, IDK either. But.... Naming a beer after your (soon to be departing) headbrewer is about as cult of personality as one can get.

 

The beer was named not by Surly but rather by Amager Bryghus in Denmark, with which Surly originally collaborated to produce the beer. I believe the beer was originally intended as a one-off (well, a two-off, as it was brewed at both breweries) and not intended to be canned by Surly (I believe it was in fact bottled by Amager in its original run, and it continues to be bottled by Amager to this day). It was available mainly at the taproom of the original Brooklyn Center brewery and local beer festivals, with perhaps a few kegs making appearances around Twin Cities area bars. But that first round at Surly proved so popular that it was brought back for distribution.

 

i think the variability within a brand is kind of "craft" too. Like the way different vintages of the same wine are different. Gives you something to talk about--"the 3/27/19 Hopduster (made up name, apologies to any real Hopduster that may exist) was really juicy but the 6/5/18 is still the juiciest one I ever had. Never did get any of the July 2019 though."

also cool with mixed ferments or 100% spontaneous ferments too.

Consistency as to exact flavor replication batch to batch is just not that big a deal to me (as long as QUALITY is always top-notch, no palpable flaws etc), but I can see how some people feel 100% different about that

 

True. They're getting better though IMO.

Bill & Ashleigh remain next level. I know no more about their recipes than the extremely simple ones I have seen in, say, a feature story about their helles in Craft Beer & Brewing (I think) so it's gotta be in their, well, "craft" that the delta lies.

 

I am not familiar with that article/recipe but as you likely already know a recipe is more than an ingredient list but also the detailed list of instructions as well. For a beer style such as Helles the brewing process steps are just as important (more important?) than the ingredient selection. Plus since beer is brewed using agricultural products there could be a need to make some small adjustments (tweaks) in order to maintain consistency in the resulting beer (needless to say this is a lesser priority for you but perhaps important to the majority of customers).

The challenge with detailed instructions/brewing process is that perhaps not every process step is documented but more of something that the brewer just decides to do along the way per their zeitgeist or individual style of brewing.

Cheers!

Edit: I did find this: https://beerandbrewing.com/brewers-perspective-a-proper-helles-toeing-the-line-between-bland-and/

Some brewing process discussion but not much.

 

Soooo, if Axe Man is a beer that most agree falls apart after only a month, why is it still being brewed on large scale, packaged, and distributed across state lines? Why, of all the beers Surly makes, was it chosen as the Brew Pipeline release?

 

All IPAs fall apart within hours... didn't you know that?

 

Late to the party, but this is a topic I've thought about myself...kind of.

I'm still pretty new to the beer game. I'm still very young and only got into beer about a year ago, and IPAs less than a year ago.

On a trip to Iowa back in March (from Ohio) I made a list of a few beers I wanted to try that I could get out that way, and Todd was one of them. I grabbed a 4 pack of the pint cans for like $17, but it was well worth it, an absolutely fabulous beer! Fast forward a few months and I see that my local bottle shop and high end grocery stores were getting it along with Furious. I went to grab a pack about a month and a half ago (when it got "released" at the store I was at) and it was canned on I think August 18. Obviously I passed, and it was still on the shelf on my trip last week. I found it very odd myself.

 

Agreed, I would think Surly would be better off sending less $ beers that have a longer shelf life. I’m not putting down $17 for a beer I never had before.

Xtra citra
Coffee bender

These are beers I’ve had and would be much easier to sell I would think.

Enjoy

 

The canned Axe Man that I bought a while back (in Ohio) was nothing like the Axe Man I was blown away by while having regular access to Surly in Illinois. The pack I bought here in Ohio was just shy of a month old.

@BillManley I know that earlier you suggested the recipe has remained the same since inception. However, the look of the beer is completely different from what it used to be. I will try to find some photos, but the difference is night and day. Now, I understand that appearance does not necessarily = flavor...but if the look has changed that much with the same recipe and process, why should we assume other aspects of the beer haven’t changed? Admittedly, I’m usually one that attributes nearly all perceived changes in beer over time to my adjusting palate. In this case though, the change in appearance leads me to trust my assessment that many aspects of this beer have changed.