Sunday, April 02, 2006

Surly and The Horny Gnome

Or maybe it's the Surly, Horny Gnome...wait...no...The Drunken Gnome. That's not it either...Thirsty...Drunken...Hungry...almost...ah...we (Dan'l, CookieQueen and their son, P'mon, Pooteewheet, Eryn, Kyle and I) went to The Happy Gnome in St. Paul on Saturday and I got to try my first Surly beer, Surly Furious. I've always loved Summit EPA, it's my beer of choice, and I've never found anything I like quite as much on a glass-to-glass, long-term drinking basis, and it's got the added appeal of being a local brew, but Surly Furious...damn is that a good glass of beer: four varieties of hops and the same malt used in Macallan single malt scotch - almost designed with me in mind.

We also had food, although the selection seemed limited, as was evident in the sheer volume of bison burgers that hit the table. My medium came well done, which is usually a serious problem with buffalo - but was tolerable in this case, which indicated it wasn't all buffalo. The waitress assured us it wasn't, but was mixed with bacon to give it some moisture. The waitress also gave the three guys a hard time latter when she noticed that the women and children had abandoned ship and we were left drinking all alone.

Two other observations - I ran into yet another coworker, Matt. Not someone who works in another department even, but formerly within a few cubes of me - so that was interesting. And curling must be way more popular than I realized as the lot was packed so full people were parking on the street, and yet the bar didn't have that many people in it. As it shares its lot with the Curling Club, that had to be where people were hanging out - Winter Olympics residue?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh great - is that going to be his nickname from now on? "P'mon"?

I didn't like my bison burger - no flavor! Although it looked like the bar would be fun (without kids!!)

Anonymous said...

You didn't mention that Surley Brewery is also a local brew (being based out of Brooklyn Center), so you're still buying local. They've only got two beers going for now, from what I found on their website,

https://www.surlybrewing.com/beers.php

but based on the delicious hoppy goodness in the glass of Furious I consumed, they seem to know what they're doing so far.

Bison burger-wise, the horseradish mustard might have been a good addition in the flavor boosting department. Going rare too, although a rare bison burger with bacon ground into it might not pass FDA certification procedures ;)

Scooter said...

I did mention it was local "and it's got the added appeal of being a local brew"! And I saw Dan'l rare - the difference between the medium I had and the rare Dan'l had was mine had no pink and a scorched surface, and Dan'ls was raw meat and looked like bison mush, although apparently bison mush mixed with pork. I hope the nematodes don't hurt.

Anonymous said...

Everything before the "but Surly Furious" led me to believe you were referencing all that to your beloved Summit EPA ;)

Parasite-wise, we'll have to see if Dan starts becoming thinner and thinner as the summer progresses. Then again, I suppose Trichinosis might be more likely from the bacon - I think it just hangs out in your muscle tissue and makes them sore...