Beer Reviews- Surly, Rush River, Flat Earth

It's been a little while since I posted and with very little happening in the Bearded Brewery, I thought I'd review some local beers. Before I get to the reviews, a quick update: time has treated the Oso well and the reviews from friends have been positive. While stated last week that it was a bit thin and lacked some character, I think that it's improved with time (even though that's only been a couple of weeks). It does lack something, hops and/or honey, but it definitely is a nice session beer with some nice drinkability and some malty-biscuit going on.
After close to two weeks of very active fermentation, I transfered the Gringo into the secondary and added 12oz of Agave Nectar. It had some great citrusy/hoppy flavors before I threw it into the fridge to lager for a couple weeks. I'm eager to see how this turns out.

Onto the reviews: Surly Coffee Bender
I thought I'd review some local beers, and I'll go in order from my favorite to least favorite of the bunch. First up is Surly's Coffee Bender. This beer won the best coffee beer at the GABF last year, and I was excited to see this in cans and become their winter seasonal. While I'm not a fan of the Furious, over time Bender from Surly has become one of my favorite beers. Adding organic coffee to the mix made it even better. When I first had it a bar, it came in a Surly Coffee Mug...which I thought was really creative.
This beer pours a dark chocolate brown with a two finger tan head. Those wonderful Bender aromas of roasty, toffee, chocolate, and biscuit but with an intense espresso/coffee aroma over top of it. A really enticing smell. Right away there's an intense coffee flavor. In fact most of the coffee stouts I've drank offer this much coffee flavor. The mouthfeel is smooth and soft, and the coffee gives way to a creamy/caramely body with roasty and chocoalte flavors throughout. A lingering bitterness and some coffee in the finish make this one of the better beers I've had in some time and hands down the best coffee beer I've ever had.

Rush River Lost Arrow Porter: Rush River is a brewery that has been around for a couple years, first south of St. Paul near Red Wing, Minnesota, and more recently across the river in River Falls, Wisconsin. With a bigger brewery to operate out of, Rush River started bottling and putting out more beers in the their line. I've always been a huge fan of their Unforgiven Amber Ale, and also really enjoy their Bubble Jack IPA. I was excited to try this because porters are one of my favorite styles of beer. Lost Arrow pours dark chocolate brown with a thin khaki head. Wonderful aromas of toffee, caramel, and roastiness. Smooth and sweet at first with a nice creamy mouthfeel. There are some nice chocolate and caramel flavors with some nice roastiness and a slight bitterness in the finish. Hardly any hop presence, this is a very silky, well balanced beer. Not as good as Summit's Great Northern Porter, but a close second and a damn good porter.

Flat Earth Cygnus 1 Porter
Flat Earth Brewing Company has been in St. Paul for a couple of years and has been steadily growing their roster. I'd had this beer on tap before, but never picked up a bottle. They call this beer a Canadian Porter, it is brewed with rye and Canadian 2-Row. It pours a dark brown, almost black with a ruby hues and a thin off white head. Wonderful toasty/biscuit aromas, with a lot of roastiness and chocolate as well. Very smooth, slick mouthfeel with a lot of roasitness and chocolate notes. It's quite biscuity as well, with a lingering bitterness/sourness that I wouldn't normally expect in a porter. I'm assuming that can be attributed to the rye malt. There's a little bit of smoke in the finish as well and some more toast. Overall, not bad, but not great either.

I plan to have some more reviews coming up and also the much anticipated swap of the Bi-Partisan Porter.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer