Creativity is King

I have a couple TRUE passions in this world. Things that I will talk to anyone about and I will voice my opinions no matter what the scenario. Among others, these things include:

-movies featuring Timothy Olyphant

-the discography of Kenny G

-the tennis accomplishments of Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario

But chief among these is my passion for beer. I estimate (100% seriously) I’ve drank well over 250 different kinds of beer in my relatively short amount on this earth. I try at least 1-2 new beers every week. I’m not buying cases of each one of these and just getting hammered all the time though. Once you’ve gotten through the big names, the vast majority of the good stuff can only be bought in single bottles. Plus I have a job and can’t recover from drinking nearly as quick as I used to. So those things probably work in my favor.

I still will drink the Miller Lites and Buds of the world on the weekend without a complaint, but to me, there is nothing like cracking open a bottle of beer that you’ve never tried before, and I am in a constant search for the greatest beer I have ever tasted.

Additionally, if there is anything that I am self-admitted hypebeast for…it’s beer. “That’s crazy,” you say. Yeah, it might be crazy, but that don’t make it not true. Most good microbreweries put out several different kinds of beer over the course of the year…usually having to do with the season (i.e. spring/summer/fall/winter). If the brewery is extra small, the quantities they actually produce are limited. And if they do an ESPECIALLY good job brewing that beer…those bottles become HOT commodities. There are a lot of people who are pretty crazy for beer out in the world (go here or here if you want to get an idea), so if word gets around that x brewery hit it out of the park with y beer…things can get wild.

Most recently, one of the best (and probably my personal favorite) breweries in the country, Surly Brewing Co. (located about 15 minutes from my home), put out their seasonal fall beer called SurlyFest. They brewed one batch of it and put it in cans. These 4 packs of cans sold out immediately. It was like a limited edition Nike shoe release or something…people calling liquor stores all over the area and asking if they had Surlyfest in stock. And none of them did. Like all shoe releases though, if you get friendly with an owner at a spot…maybe they’ll hold a pair for you. In my case, a pair of 4-packs.

Except unlike a limited Nike shoe release, people weren’t bringing these cans home to sell them on eBay or jerk off into them. People were bringing these home to drink. All in all, it’s a pretty fascinating aspect to the whole craft brewery industry and I think that sort of thing is only gonna get more prevalent. And by the way, the SurlyFest was fucking awesome.

So there’s your introduction to the world of quality beer. Now let’s get to the topic of the post.

This Saturday, October 25th, Surly will be selling its MUCH more limited edition fall beer called Surly Darkness. Surly Darkness is a Russian Imperial Stout…which means it’s very strong (I believe 9.3% abv this year) and very, very dark. Darker than a Guinness. I’m not even a huge fan of stouts, but I am willing to give this a try, simply because Surly hasn’t ever let me down. They consistently make some of the most drinkable beer I’ve ever found.

So this Saturday, Surly is opening its gates at noon, and the first 700 people in line have the opportunity to buy up to 6 750 mL bottles of Surly Darkness at $17 a piece. At this point, I think it’s safe to say that the only for sure way you’ll have an opportunity to buy Darkness is by camping out (sound familiar?). People are coming in from as far away as Ohio to get their hands on this stuff.

Last year, Surly released under 400 bottles of Darkness. Some of the bottles showed up on eBay and were selling for $300+. Why so high? Well obviously the hype and limited availability helped…but what also helped was the fact that for a period of time, Surly Darkness was ranked as the #1 Russian Imperial Stout in the entire world. Which is, interestingly enough, a pretty huge deal.

This year, Surly has around 4000 bottles for sale…so the $300 price tags on eBay probably won’t be happening (I say PROBABLY). I think it’s a good move on Surly’s part to make this somewhat more available but also to keep some of the mystique in place.

This is a beer that has become kind of legendary in the beer world, and I think that’s awesome. Why? Most importantly, their beer is just THAT good. It lives up to the hype, and then some. Surly Brewery is basically a little warehouse in the suburbs. The owner of the brewery still gives tours of the place on occasion. I guaran-damn-tee you that they’ve gotten massive offers to sell off their name to a bigger brewery, but they’ve remained completely independent and are basically pwning 90% of the other microbrews out there with every single beer they release. You gotta respect that.