A 12% ABV Russian Imperial Stout wasn’t enough for you, was it? Nope. You wanted a barrel-aged monster, ripe with oaky rye whiskey notes and a big of bling on the bottle, right? We know you. We do. Hang on to your cowboy hats for a few more days ready yourself for the release of Surly Brewing Co.’s Barrel-Aged Darkness. You’ll find it in bottles and on draft in Minnesota and beyond (7 states, to be exact). Should you find yourself in Minneapolis, this beer will drop at the brewery on the 8th.

I probably don’t need to tell you barrel-aged beer nerds any specifics, but here goes: for this release, 2016 Darkness spent over three months in High West rye whiskey barrels before bottling. Mmm. Rye. Spice. Wood. Play Doh (kidding).

Barrel nerdery begins February 6th

Authenticity. That’s the word being thrown around the Surly beer hall over in Prospect Park. They called a select group of media together to announce how they planned to replace their original brewer and trendsetter Todd Haug.

Ben Smith and Jerrod Johnson will carry the torch for the brewing team as co-head brewers, and they have plans to create more unique beers for the market and also to pair with the highly acclaimed food being served at The Brewer’s Table. In order to do this, they are starting a “Brewers Series” to showcase their unique talents. Ben has been there for over 3 years while Jerrod was employee #5 back in 2008. The first experiment will be a “champagne beer” created in cahoots with Jorge Guzman and his team for the New Years Eve Dinner which is being hosted by the restaurant. “Collaboration is the name of the game” says Smith. “We’ve always set trends. We make the beers we wanna make here.”

What about the image of the brewery going forward? Well Ben’s probably not gonna grow out his hair and cover himself in tattoos, but he’s also a metal head—and Jerrod is probably the brewing industry’s biggest Zelda geek. So probably more of the same, and somewhere in between. “We’re gonna continue to build this dysfunctional family. Change has been the only consistent thing here at Surly” says Johnson.

Something that was emphasized throughout the event (as they poured all four of their IPAs) was that they are not limited to making hop forward beers, but at the same time they won’t apologize for their love of hops.

Owner Omar Ansari also spoke about growth of the brewery and mentioned that they may one day go worldwide. “When we envision the growth, we want to continue to explore and create new beers. They’re [Ben and Jerrod] just as excited to try the new beers as others.”

Here’s to hoping for some Zelda themed beers.

Todd and Linda Haug have been bombarded with questions since they stepped down (Linda in February, Todd less than 2 weeks ago) at Surly Brewing. Most of their friends and family assumed they would start a brewery here in the Twin Cities, but that’s false. The former Café 28 owners are moving six and half hours southeast to Chicago, Illinois where they will be joining forces with 3 Floyds Brewing—a craft beer powerhouse just across the border in Indiana.

Todd will be helping the brewery out with their expansion, distillery and all sorts of things—but the main focus will be new products and engineering. “They need help with a lot of things down there. We respect the hell out of them” Todd says. He won’t be the head brewer, but he’ll have a crack at creating some new beers there at some point in the future. “It’s exciting for us” he says. The biggest thing for me is I get to work with Chris Boggess [the head brewer] down there. It’s a very wide scope of work, and he won’t have to worry about everything.”

Todd plans to continue making music down there as well. The longtime Powermad guitarist sees the band sticking together for the most part, and he’s excited about playing in a city with a great music scene. He also has some musician friends down there that may end of creating some music with down the road.

Linda will be in on the restaurant and will also be helping with some design stuff. The couple sounded very happy on their way back here from Chicago over the weekend. In fact, the house is sold and they are adamantly searching for a house down in The Windy City where they’ll bring their talents along with their family of 5 cats. She says they’ll miss their friends up here in Minnesota, but they have plenty of friends down in Chicago already. “We have lots of friends down there. It’s heartwarming. I’ve always loved the energy down there” said Linda.

The move is expected to happen within the first couple weeks of December and work should start for them sometime in January or shortly after. There will also be other opportunities down the road for the couple which includes traveling the world. Don’t rule out a move to Europe down the road either. 3 Floyds and Mikkeller have a brewpub called WarPigs over in Copenhagen and Todd seemed intrigued as he spoke about it. In other words, this is not the end of their journey.

So what about Surly? Todd was the brand, the attitude, and the culture there. “Omar is going in a different direction. I see it getting worse. But no blame. I poured my heart and soul into that place” he stated. It sounds like he’ll really miss the brewing staff though that he helped build over his 10 years at the brewery. “Surly is left in very capable hands. I won’t be there to help them out. That’s the shitty part.”

“When the door closes, a window opens. We’re going in a different direction” said Linda.

Minnesota wishes you well.

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Dara grabbed the story last night as well. Read her take here.