I don’t really want to keep dragging this one, but one final thing I have to contend with…”there’s a large deal of marketing that some have bought into..”
You can buy into it, sure, but once you drink the beer, and you like it, it becomes more than marketing. Obviously, Steve, you like the products of other breweries. Some amount of marketing brought you to them. Anything that drives a consumer to a product, in any way, is a kind of marketing. Once you taste it, and you like it, and you keep buying it…is it still marketing that drives you? Have you “bought into it?” No, the product has proven itself, and you now identify with it, and promote it, through your purchase, or through talking with friends and associates, based on it’s merits.

Think what you want about Surly, but I think you are wrong, and your opinion is largely conjecture, but my experience with the brand is concrete. I have been serving Surly beers at the Blue Nile for 2 years and eight months now, if anyone is counting (obviously…I just did..)…and I swear to God, you like it or you don’t, but no one is drinking it to look cool. That’s what PBR is for.

Now, some hate, and some love, and some think “it’s okay”…but, I pour Surly beers every single day, (except on my days off, when I have someone else pour me one, or pour myself one at home) sometimes to my regulars, sometimes to diners I’ll never speak to, sometimes to random folks who wander in…very often pwople are trying Surly for the first time, without every hearing of it, or knowing of any kind of “hype”…all the see is it’s name on our menu. If it’s at the bar, they look at a tap handle, they ask me about it, I give them a sample, they like it, (or not) they ask for more. That’s how it works, in the real world. They may not like it, so what, life goes on. But I have met more people who really enjoy their Surlys, whether Furious, Bender, Cynic, Darkness, Fest or other, and when I see them express their enjoyment, they are not being hypnotized by the tap handle or the coaster or the logo on the glass or anything magic emblem you may imagine is twisting their thought processes.
But no one choses to drink a Surly at my bar, or any other, because it makes them look or feel cool. They do it because they like to.
You think “good, not great”. So, what? Maybe that’s good enough? Why slice these degrees of opinion so fine and fuss about them? People in the Twin Cities are getting excited about Good Local Beer, and that’s a damn good thing we should all celebrate.
You don’t like Surly as much as you like Summit? Great, fine, then bang their drum all the louder, just don’t go concocting weird-ass theories about the brain-washed Surly masses.
Or…am I brainwashed. too?
No, just fed up. I need another Furious. Just to feel cool, I guess.

You’re going to have to show some sources here. Who got worked up?

If it was “just beer” you wouldn’t pipe up every time someone mentioned Darkness to give your opinion.

I’ve been drinking good beer, not macro swill, probably longer than most Surly fans have been out of daipers.

OK, I’ll grant you my attempt to poke fun at the devotion of Surly fans came across wrong. Gee…anyone ever mis-read an email? Noooooooo…that NEVER happens!

On the other hand, there is a large degree of marketing that some have bought into.

I do (Ooooh I’m so hip I drink Surly) and don’t (the beers are good NOT great) understand the devotion.

What I don’t understand is how people can get so worked up when someone says, “Enh, not so much.” about Darkness.

Get a life. It’s just beer. Not life or death. Or having your kid sent to Irag.

But, to be clear, you can have your opinions…but the main point was your opinion of other people.

Fanboy, shmanboy. We each fly whatever flags we feel like, and there’s no need to go insulting someone for his particular stars or stripes.

Dislike Darkness all day long, but don’t knock on people because they do like it, or for what they do to get their hands on some.

I know exactly what happened. I copped to the fanboy chain yanking.

I’m sorry people took the teasing the wrong way. I’m not sorry for not falling in with the knee-jerk group think or for being able to make up my mind on a beer without seeing what everyone at BA or RB thinks.