Surly Darkness

Brewed by Surly Brewing Company
Style: Imperial Stout
Brooklyn Center, Minnesota USA

Serve in Snifter

Bottle at Dutch RB meeting, thanks for sharing joes! Finally had the opportunity to try this sought-after beer. Pours pitch black with a thin tan head. Amazing aroma of very fruity chocolate, caramel, coffee and quite sugary. Slightly disappointing flavor with too much sweetness but still loads of chocolate, fruits, caramel and berries. Sugary sweet finish with only a hint of bitterness. A bit too sweet for my taste, but still a very nice brew.

Bottle at RBNAG-2009. Black colour with a tan head. Aroma is roasted, malt, hop, cacao. Flavour is sweet, alcohol, roasted malt, licorice, coffee, vanilla, dried fruits. Full body. Very nice beer.

Sampled from the bottle at the 2010 March Metro Detroit Tasting. Poured black with a small brown head. Aroma was full of sweeter notes with milk chocolate, dark fruits and caramel/toffee shining through. There was a slight undertone of coffee on the nose. Flavor began with many of the sweet notes listed above with a finish full of roasted malts and coffee.

22oz. Bottle courtesy of Baomr: Aroma of malt, chocolate, roasting, slight Bourbon, slight hops, light Earth, slight toffee, and soy sauce. Poured pitch black in color with a tiny, tan head around the edges only. Slightly sparkling. Opaque. Flavor is light to medium sweet and not bitter. Tastes of malt, roasting, light chocolate, soy sauce, a hint of caramel, and slight piney hops. Medium body. Lightly dry texture. Texture was thinner than expected for this Impy Stout. Average carbonation. Roasted malt, soy, and slight chocolate finish is slightly dry. Good, but over-hyped. It is like a lot of other good RIS. 10%ABV is completely hidden throughout.

Bottle, 22oz 2009 vintage, from trade with Akevitt. Thx a bunch! It’s a pitch black beer topped by a quite small but lasting tan head leaving lacings. Salt and molasses, chocolate and coffee, licorice and soy, and quite evident hops on the nose. Plain lovely. The flavor is pretty much the same, all the dark flavors imaginable, super smooth on the palate, and with delicious piney hops adding bitterness. Oily and full-bodied. Quite bitter finish, but far from overpowering. It would be decadent to drink a bottle, but I bet I would love that hour of satisfaction. It’s a wonderful, complex and tasteful beer. 091106

bomber to snifter. Aroma sweet malt chocolate and hoppiness. Appearance dark oil black brown with dark tan head with nice lacing. Taste sweet coco and malty booze fruit and nuts very complex. Palate is full chaulky feel and boozy dry finish. Overall amazing this 2009 bottle is so complex that everytime I try a bottle I taste something else, very impressive.

2009 bottle from Matt (madvike). Deep opaque brown-black body, thick tan head. Caramely nose, dusty and crackery, with stale bread, heavy roast, chocolate, molasses, and soy. The body was quite sweet, but felt unbalanced, with big chocolate, licorice, and honey-like molasses notes, sugary, with dark fruit, coffee, and distracting toasty cereals that lent a soggy, wavering homebrew quality to the malt profile. Some citrus and pine hops. Overall, this beer was marred by oxidized sugars, and lacked enough roast or warming alcohol to firm up the palate. After sampling the wonderfully executed, but relatively unadventurous Cigar City Marshal Zhukov’s IS, this beer struck me as messy, a tad cloying, and not very deep.

Batch 3 Bottle thanks Rciesla. Rating 666. Dark pour with dark tan head. Hopped up Russian imperial stout with roasted chocolate and malt along with strong hop influences. A stout worthy of the devils number.