I had a chance to check out the new brewery on Thursday and chat with some of the Surly family. Check out my notes from media day at the new Prospect Park brewery.
On the origination of the new brewery:
I asked owner Omar Ansari if he thought when he started that Surly would be here after 9 years. "That's just dumb, no that's silly" he said. "Everything has changed so much in nine years." He said the dream for this new "destination brewery" came about 4 years ago after Todd and Linda came back with a brochure from a brewery in Germany. When asked about the architectural design he said they were never going to build a historic looking brewery like Grain Belt in Northeast. Omar likes clean lines and he described the look of the new brewery as Danish Brewing Death Star. "Maybe you'll love or maybe you'll hate it" said Omar. "We hope people like it, we hope they say that's why we passed the Surly Bill."
On the future of their new neighborhood:
"The whole neighborhood is waiting for development. The whole thing is going to change because of the Green Line." said Omar. He mentioned that breweries tend to take up home in parts of town that need some love.
On the brewery:
Brewmaster Todd Haug talked about the new digs mentioning that the brewing equipment came from the same manufacturer as the one at Stone Brewing.
It was interesting to see that they now have a Hopnik which is basically a dry hopping machine that the beer runs through via hoses. He explained that there is a lot of risk involved in dumping hops in the top of a fermenter such as the the beer blowing up in the brewers face—and this device prevents them from having to dry hop that way. Another tidbit worth noting was that BLAKKR will now be a winter seasonal offering from Surly.
