Bourbon Bender
Surly Brewing Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States 🇺🇸
Brown Ale Regular|
Score
6.63
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JK (8181) reviewed Bourbon Bender from Surly Brewing Company 19 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
ABR 2006. Surly beers can be hard to classify, and "brown ale" hardly does this beer justice so if someone has a better classification, like American pale ale, please submit the correction. The bourbon aroma is on the light side and not overpowering like some bourbon beers. The aroma gets stronger as it warms, however. Lots of bourbon in the flavor and the intense hops of the standard Bender have mellowed.
Clarkvv (16523) reviewed Bourbon Bender from Surly Brewing Company 19 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 7.5
Batch 1 aged in a bourbon barrel for over 5 months and served on draught at the American Beer Fest on 6/16/06.
Not surprisingly, the beer has a rapidly fizzling, beige head that produces some light legs, but has no real lasting power, the mid gravity beer having sat in bourbon for quite some time. Still, a medium-low clarity shows low filtration and the body is a deep charcoal black-brown with mahogany/chestnut hints when held to the light. Again, I’m not concerned, nor is it a flaw that a wood-aged, draught beer dosent produce much head.
Crunchy coffee and lines of vanilla-streaked wood caress the nose, as you fall deeply in to a puddle of semi-sweet chocolate. Grainy, unpasteurized maltiness keeps an edge on the aroma, as does the barrel-aging. But though the barrel is definitely strong in the nose, it’s not too strong, I don’t think. Slick, nutty yeastiness calms things down on the end. Maybe some lightly damp, green leafiness still stirs, but the hops are mostly gone from here by now.
The flavor combines cola, chocolate, light-roast coffee and almonds all in to a complex, but soft and unchallenging balance of character. Some sticky date/toffee hints and more fresh, unpasteurized yeastiness. The barrel comes out, more audaciously than in the nose, adding a slight bit of acidity and certainly some bourbon and char flavors. Honestly though, I think the bourbon actually works against the natural complexity I read about in others reviews, not to mention this near-5% abv ale seems to have lost all of its sparkle sitting in the barrel. The draught carbonation is not enough to bring it back, and the texture comes off VERY loose, and quite watery on the end, the flavors trailing off in to a chocolate-bourbon sweetness.
Very well-made beer, they just needed to either, A) serve it bottle conditioned bottles or B) naturally carbonate the keg. As is, the poor texture takes all of the fun out of it. Alcohol is not apparent.