September 8, 2007
Don’t get Surly with me.
Two weeks ago something amazing happened in the foodcraftlife house. My husband and I had a day off together. Miraculous indeed! Even better, we both had the day off on the SAME day that local brewery Surly held their monthly tour. Well, we knew what we had to do…
…we had to drink beer.
Yes, that is the sort of sacrifice I’m willing to make on my quest towards eating (and drinking!) locally. I do it all for you, the world beyond.
The first joy of the day was finding out that Surly is even closer to our house than I thought. Google Maps puts the distance at 1.1 miles. How many people live 1.1 miles from a top brewery? I wonder if this will increase our house value when we sell.
Proximity is important not only because of my local obsession but also because each Saturday from 12-2pm you can stop by the brewery and pick up or exchange Growlers of beer. What’s a Growler? I’ll let Surly explain. Being just 1.1 miles away means that just a nice stroll away we can pick up freshly brewed beer straight from the source. No shipping, no sitting in stock rooms, just happy fresh beer. My husband says that biking with beer is a bad idea, carbonation and all that, but I say pshaw. I saw at least one person on a bike exchanging Growlers.
Our second surprise of the day was the crowd. Holy beergut Batman! I don’t know if the tours are always that crowded or if the recent City Pages article created extra buzz but it was a zoo. The line for samples was so long that we skipped over it in order to get into the tour on time. Don’t worry, we went back.
Now, when they say tour, you’re probably expecting a group of people walking along corridors full of equipment and people working feverishly amidst it all. Here’s the thing - the brew house is one room. One BIG room. Yeah, they are still small. And I love it.
Founder Omar Ansari started things off by talking about how Surly got started. Most of the story can be found on their website under History. It’s always great to hear about people who turn a hobby into a business and make it work. The making it work part is key, and usually the missing key. He spoke about getting started, finding equipment, adapting the building, even having to get Brooklyn Center to change their zoning to allow them to exist.
Considering they just brewed their first batch on New Year’s Eve of 2005, their expansion and rise to glory has been swift. They have a small canning line (it would fit in our living room) so you can find Surly at a store near you. They’ve won awards like Beer Advocate Magazine’s Best Brewery of 2007 and their Surly Darkness was best American beer according to ratebeer.com. This is pretty astounding for a small company that has barely spread beyond their own backyard. On the tour Omar quipped, “someone called and asked when our beer would be in Washington D.C. I pointed out that we aren’t even in St. Cloud yet!”
Now I have to admit, their beer is a bit hoppy for my taste. It’s not something I could or would drink a lot of. But I thought the Bender was smooth and good while still having a bit of bite. Furious had a bit too much bite for my tastes, but I’m a wimp when it comes to beer. The British hubby found it much more to his liking. Is it odd that even if something isn’t to my tastes, I can still taste that it is good for what it is? Furious certainly is too strong a beer for me, but it still tasted like a good beer. Just not a good beer for me.
A lot of their beers are seasonal so we look forward to trying more as the year rolls on. At just 1.1 miles away, we can afford to pop round every so often and try something new!
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