Beer Review: Furious IPA (Surly Brewing Company)

Finally Surly Brewing Company has hit Central PA on a regular basis and on their own. They were featured in the Around the World case that Sierra Nevada released a few years ago where they did a group of collaborations with a ton of different top-notch breweries. But this time, its now Surly Brewing on their own reaching the mid-state area with several of their cans available at Breski’s Beverage and other similar outlets.

As the name suggests, this is a furiously hopped, aggressive IPA. Traditional West Coast style, nothing new or fancy about it like the new Milkshake IPAs or even New England hazy IPAs. This is an old fashion, powerfully hoppy, aggressive, angry, furious beer. Built for a MegaDeath, Metallica, or GWAR concert.

This is certainly a hoppy beer, so you better be prepared and happy knowing that going in. Because if you don’t like hops, or hoppy beers, or bitter hoppy beers, then this definitely will not be for you. It is a powerful hop punch right to the jaw that would make Tyson Fury proud. So let’s crack her open and get all up in that hoppy business.

Beer: Furious (IPA)
Brewery: Surly Brewing Company
Style: IPA – American
ABV: 6.7%
IBU: 100
Untappd Write-Up: The beer that built Surly. Aggressively hopped and citrusy, but with a chewy, caramel malt backbone.

Right there the stats should give you some indication of this beer, 100 IBU on the outset, is a high target, especially when all those New England and Milkshake IPAs you’ve been pounding at the latest brewfest have an IBU count of < 15. For comparison’s sake, Perpetual IPA by Troegs Independent Brewing has 85 IBU, Green Machine by Boneshire Brew Works has 75 IBU, TMI PA by Tattered Flag has 80 IBU, but their triple IPA Manghost has 120 IBU. So this should kind of give you a modest starting indication where this beer falls.

Appearance is on par with traditional, American, West Coast style IPAs. Light amber brown beer looking coloring, slightly translucent and see through but also a bit dark and opaque, clarity is definitely refined and you can see through this. Its filtered so theres no sediment or hop bits floating around. It has the looks of a well made, well honed style, thats been obviously made for a long while now and crafted and made for mass consumption. Practiced, honed, tuned in, dialed down the right degree, this looks just well made and well presented.

Aroma is a fireball of hops hitting you from a Hop Mage. (NEEEEEERRRRRRRRRDDDDD!!!!!). At 100 IBU you’re expecting a big hop punch in the nostrils, and this certainly doesn’t disappoint. You get a very heavy citrus, pine, cedar, earthy hop aroma. I get mostly pine, a friend of mine found the citrus a bit more heavy, but overall its not much of a difference, I’d say the split is pine / citrus – 60 / 40, and he’d say the split is 40 / 60 the other way. Basically negligible. You get a nice malt to this as well.

And now its time to take a soft… nice… gentle…. sip…… and…… BLAAAMMMMO. HOPS. HOPS. HOPS. (sing it like SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS). Right up front, right in the middle, right at the end, you are getting worked over in the midsection, the face, the nose, uppercuts, left hooks, right jabs, all kind of hop punches getting thrown at you. Firstly, actually breaking down the taste, there’s more to it than just hops. It has a very heavy malty, caramel malty, backbone to this, its thick, its heavy, and it does give the beer a surprisingly heavy mouthfeel. The caramel doesn’t provide much sweetness and it definitely doesn’t alter how bitter and hoppy this is, as the bitterness of the hops still push through whatever sweetness the caramel malt might impart. Like with the aroma, there is a lot of hops here. You get a lot of citrus and pine and cedar and earthy hop notes. A lot of bitter hops, not too floral or bright, and not light. This is certainly not for the “haze craze only” or “White Claw” crowd, thats for sure. This has a lot of flavor between the hops and malt, but it is overly bitter, so if you can’t really get past that, which some can’t, then it might be a problem. Same goes with that hop bite (which is basically the bitterness), if you can’t really get past it, you won’t like this. It is the definition of “aggressively hopped” thats a guarantee.

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.89 (as of 2.23.20)

Thanks for reading everyone, if you want to check out some recent beer reviews, you can check out: Chocolate Confidential, Sunshine and Opportunity, Pete’s Secret Stache, Loki – Wild IPA, Back to Reality, I Cannot Tell a Lie, and Valentine’s Day Beers.

Enjoy, cheers, prost!

-B. Kline