Surly Sixteen Barrel aged Imperial Red Ale with Raspberry & Strawberry

 Surly Sixteen Barrel aged Imperial Red Ale with Raspberry & Strawberry.

12.5% ABV. Surly Brewing, Minneapolis/Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.

And here we have the first Surly anniversary beer I had to talk myself into buying. The pieces just don’t seem to spell out something I’d like. Maybe I would...but for $14 a can? I generally skip beers that expensive. On the other hand, I’ve never not sampled a Surly Anniversary beer...did I want to start stopping?

Well, here it is...better drink it...

Murky looking, with an indiscriminate hue...off-crimson, maybe? Definitely the color of muddled fruit, wrapped up in bourbon barrels. Slim, whitish head on top. 

In the nose: whiskey and berries, vanilla, cream & fruit. Sweet & fruity, with bourbon poking through. 

In the mouth: fruit & Barrel, together at last. A weird melange, the berries predominant, but just barely, sweetness caught up in the bourbon barrel. Not a graceful liquid, no elegant ale. Might be called a mess. Sometimes the fruit is forward, then the barrel is bold and takes command. Not especially smooth or well integrated, and to hell with balance. It’s rough and tumble, but I don’t hate it. Does that mean I like it? There have been sixteen of these and I’ve tried fifteen of them (still hoping to try 12 some day.)...and they’re all different and some are weird. They can’t all be normal, but they should be good. 

Decision: not too shabby. Maybe just shabby enough.

It takes a measure of grit to persevere through sixteen years of business, and that ability to stick it out and keep pushing boundaries inspired this beer. The base beer started life as a strong red ale—not quite a barleywine but in the neighborhood. Then it laid down in a variety of barrels, including Parker’s Heritage Wheat Whiskey Barrels, Elijah Craig 12-year Bourbon Barrels, and a handful of ruby port casks to add a top note of complexity. Once the beer matured, we blended it with fresh strawberry and raspberry puree to add fruitiness and necessary brightness to this malty mosaic of flavors.