A friend of mine has, unfortunately, become a resident of Minnesota but occasionally makes his way back to Madison. This being the case, I like to encourage him to bring me Minnesota beer and I now find myself in possession of some Surly.
The first brew I tried was their summer seasonal, Hell, a zwickel. Although unfiltered, it was not hazy nor was their some tasty yeast detritus at the bottom of my glass. It was clear as day and a lovely yellow color to boot. As the photo above shows, I got a nice frothy head and the effervescent goodness made for a pretty sight in my pilsner glass. Also, it left some fairly heavy Schaumhaftvermoegen.
Taking a whiff, I caught bread dough along with some grass/straw, and a faint tinge of hops that were herbal in character. Since it was fricking hot out when I busted this stuff out, I was really looking forward to that lager crispness to cut through the heat. Lately I have found that pale ales just don't work in the heat. Recent bottles of Pearl Street's pale ale and a Moon Man went unfinished. Although I had emtpied the majority of the beer, I just couldn't finish them and still felt very thirsty afterwards. I guess you don't drink an ale for a lager's job. Hell worked well in this respect. The crispness quenched my thirst and took the edge off the heat. It has a medium malt backbone which is balanced nicely by the hops which impart a grassy flavor, not unlike the aroma. You can taste the carbonation but it was not prominent.
The problem was that, while I was enjoying the fine, balanced malt-hop thing, the flavor suddenly departed my mouth and my tongue could only register smooth velvet. I presume this was diacetyl as it is said to taste like butter and what I registered was butter without the dairy. Too bad. I don't know if this was because of bacteria invading the beer or something to do with the beer's lagering process but, regardless, it ruined a perfectly tasty brew. Once the velvety interlude had ended, the finish was clean and moderated by some hop bitterness. Oddly enough, it wasn't a particularly dry finish as I had expected.
Junk food pairing: Nothing fancy here. Just go with some good kartoffelchips.
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