Surly Havoc Machine West Coast Style India Pale Ale

Surly Havoc Machine West Coast Style India Pale Ale. Clean. Hoppy. Devastating.

7.5 % ABV. IBU: "high" (They no longer release the number, it seems.)

Surly Brewing, Minneapolis & Brooklyn Center, MN. 

This one showed up out of the blue without warming or fanfare. A new Surly West Coast IPA. Oh, hurray, I'm so tired of everything being all hazy all the time. I wonder how it compares to Over-rated? 

Clear (with a slight chill haze), bright golden tone, slim white head. 

In the nose: orange pulp, grapefruit rind, lemon zest.  Packing a powerful citrus punch.  Nothing but hops. 

In the mouth: Crisp, refreshingly bitter, bursting with happiness. Citrus and pine gang up on the palate and never stop. Just a little bit of juicy, then turning dry, brittle, with never-ending bitterness laying long in the throat, on the tongue, all over the place. Medium bodied, expert drinkability, if only for the dyed-in-the wool hopheads (like me).

Cheers to Surly for proving that it is still possible to brew a real, true classic West Coast IPA, when so many other breweries can only seem to release half-assed, sarcastic ones. 

So, a theory, perhaps. This is slightly different beer than Over Rated, which was initially released around eight years ago. Attitudes towards Surly have changed over the years. I know a guy who was the biggest Surly fanboy you could find, diehard, dyed in the wool, die another day, you name it, he was all about the Surly. He came into the retail store where I currently work while I was on a register and what did he buy: Warpigs and Three Floyds. Now he's a Diehard Todd fan, it seems (probably always was) and there ain't nothing wrong with that.

My point being that perhaps they want to have a new West Coast IPA with a new name that doesn't actually hand out ammunition to the Surly haters out there? 

BREWED FOR WREAKING HAVOC. OR WRECKING HAVOC. YOU DO YOU, HAVOC DOER.

Cry havoc and let slip the hops of war! Get caught up in the gears of this bitter and clean West Coast-style IPA. The classically dank and and citrus-heavy hit of Cascade, Chinook, and Amarillo hops conjure a chaos of flavor, delivered with brutal and devastating efficiency.

WEST COAST IPA

COLOR

Golden

HOPS

Warrior

Chinook

Cascade. Dry-Hop: Chinook

Cascade

Amarillo

MALT

2-Row

Carahell

Acidulated Malt

Flaked Oats

OG

YEAST:English Ale

IBU:High