Lakes, winter, hot dish, and beer: These are the core tenets that color Minnesota life. While each entity holds significant individual merit, perhaps nothing is more new-age Minnesotan than a wittily-named pint of local craft beer.
Craft breweries are so prolific in fact, that they nearly threaten to steal the lakes’ spotlight and redefine the state slogan. Before we know it, all our license plates will read:
Explore Minnesota
10,000 Breweries
Indeed[1], if it weren’t for the reckless connection between alcohol consumption and driving, the state would be forced to acknowledge a real contender for the redefinition of its iconic claim to fame.
In a land where there’s a Target on every corner, a craft brewery in every industrial park, and an industrial park in every up and coming neighborhood, Minnesotans are at no loss for a vast array of indulgent drinking options. And while twenty-somethings can certainly get their fill bouncing in and out of repurposed warehouses replete with industrial pendant lighting, white subway tile backsplash, exposed brick, and raw wood accents[2] at any given turn, there is only one brewery to rule them all.
Surly.
One brewery to rule them all, one brewery to find them all, one brewery to bring them all, and in darkness bind them all[3].
Surly was not the first brewery to make it big in Minnesota[4], but it continues to stand out as one of the most beloved drinking establishments in the Twin Cities. Surly knows this and feeds off the fuel derived from its loyal fan base: Rest assured that “Surly Nation”—the nickname the company ingeniously coined to encompass everything that falls under the domain of its massively growing empire—is alive and well. And yet a surprising number of even the brewery’s most die-hard devotees don’t know about one of Surly’s best kept secrets: It’s Brooklyn Center Tour.
When Cam and I first moved in August we registered for as many local event guides as we could find. City Pages? Check! Explore Minnesota weekly hiking, biking, and birding updates? Count me in[5]! In the throes of all this subscribing I somehow stumbled across an advertisement for a free tour at Surly Brewing.
“Free tour,” particularly in the context of beer, was enough to catch my attention, but I was especially intrigued this tour was set to take place in Brooklyn Center. Anyone with a pulse living within 30 miles of Minneapolis has frequented Surly’s downtown MSP location and imbibed in it’s immaculately industrial beer hall: For the love of beer, even Guy Fieri has made a stop to Surly’s flagship fortress of steel and hops for an episode of “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives[6].” However, many loyal members of Surly Nation are unfamiliar with the brewery’s humble origin story in Brooklyn Park. Needless to say, I was intrigued.
However, what really sealed the deal was that Surly’s founder, Omar Ansari, would be leading the tour. Do you mean to tell me I can attend a tour led by the founder of one of the most renowned craft breweries in Minneapolis at its relatively unacknowledged subsidiary… all for free? Does it get any better than this?
As they like to say in advertising, “But wait! There’s more!”
Unbeknownst to Cam and me, not only had we signed up for a free event, but when we arrived in Brooklyn Center the Surly employee at the door promptly greeted us, checked our IDs, verified our registration on the guest list, and then promptly provided us with not one, not two, but three wooden tokens, each of which could be redeemed for a (free) sizable pour of one of Surly’s famous beers.
Whaaattt?
We had hit the mother load.
The tour (and the beer, for that matter) did not disappoint, and we quickly became loyal Surly devotees. Omar—equal parts beer enthusiast, awkward next-door neighbor, and stand-up comedian— is refreshingly charismatic and endearingly authentic. His casual, off the cuff persona isn’t a persona at all but rather an authentic lifestyle that sets the tone for everything that epitomizes the brand he created. In fact, we loved the tour so much that since our first visit in August we have returned six times. At this point, I’m pretty sure Omar and his colleagues recognize us, and we don’t mind at all.
While I won’t spoil the tour (because you should check it out yourself!), there are a few highlights worth mentioning:
-Omar… drank his first home-brewed beer in a dorm room on Notre Dame’s campus. Go Irish!
-Omar… followed in the entrepreneurial spirit of his parent’s legacy and started Surly in their old abrasives factory (formerly known as “Sparky Abrasives.”)
-Omar… almost killed himself (unintentionally, of course) with carbon monoxide poisoning during the construction of the Brooklyn Center brewery.
-Omar… is hilarious. In all seriousness, the man needed his own Netflix special, like yesterday.
-Omar’s …wife Becca is awesome. If Omar is hilarious, Becca is on a whole other level. Her steadfast stoicism and deadpan reactions to Omar’s antics make you feel like you’ve been drinking buddies since college. Omar readily admits Surly would have never been possible without her (and her full-time job and benefits). Seriously, Becca, let’s be friends.
One might think regular attendance at these tours would become mundane and passé, but Cam and I still have not ceased to find them insightful, inspiring, and highly entertaining. Because of Surly we learn (and drink!) something new from month to month, and for that we are particularly grateful.
Moving to a new city introduces a whole host of challenges and unknown variables, and we have found comfort and companionship in what has become our monthly ritual of attending Surly’s Brooklyn Center Tour. Nothing quite welcomes you into a new community like good beer, hilarious stories about life’s pleasantly surprising twists and turns, and the charmingly authentic dad-next-door personality that is Omar Ansari who sets aside one night each month to welcome strangers into what is, essentially, his home.
In a beer city teeming with seemingly endless opportunities to “drink local,” nothing makes you feel like you truly belong quite like that.
Cheers!
[1] Which, don’t cha know, is, in fact the name of a local brewery.
[2] If this isn’t your brewery’s décor of choice, then there’s simply nothing to say but “Go home! We don’t want you here!” For the love of everything hoppy, get the memo and conform. This is your brewery’s décor of choice? “One of us! One of us!” But seriously… This terrifyingly distinct pattern is popping up in breweries all around America. “Is this the same brewery I was at last weekend, or have I had so much to drink that now they are all starting to blur together?” You’ll never know.
[3] Oh, how appropriate this quote from J.R.R. Tolkien’s famous trilogy rings true (see what I did there?): With Darkness, Surly decidedly does rule over other breweries in the Twin Cities. What is Darkness, you ask? Technically speaking, it is a Russian Imperial Stout barrel aged in Whiskey. Nontechnically speaking, it’s Surly’s infamous crème de la crème of beers. In fact, Darkness is so notorious amongst members of Surly Nation that there is a day dedicated to this beer each year. And when I say “a day,” I really mean a full weekend filled with camping, drinking, live heavy metal music, drinking, all things “darkness,” and… did I mention drinking? Surly produces only a small batch of Darkness variants each year, and this inherently adds to the fanboy intrigue surrounding the event. In fact, there is so much hype around Darkness that beer aficionados actually engage in heated Ebay bidding wars to secure now rare variants from years past. To paint an even clearer picture of the madness that surrounds Darkness, these same crazies (I mean, people) will also engage in equally heated bidding wars for empty bottles (yes—I said empty bottles—soak that in and let that simmer for a moment…) of Darkness just for the heck of it! If you didn’t previously realize the extent of Surly’s popularity, you do now!
[4] When it comes to sheer volume, Summit and Schell have Surly beat.
[5] While I have never seriously scoured the birding updates sent to my inbox on a weekly basis, I still enjoy receiving them. For some reason I derive a subtle satisfaction knowing they are there, waiting for me, if ever they should be needed… Just in case.
[6] Although I don’t know which of these categories Surly falls into… Diner? Nope! Drive-in? I mean you can drive to the beer hall and park there, but there is no drive in feature to speak of. Dive? It most certainly is not! The only viable conclusion is that the Food Network uses these categorical misnomers loosely, and, in reality, anything and everything Guy Fieri finds mouth-wateringly appealing is fair game for a feature on the show: In other words, everything is fair game.
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