Surly Brewing destination brewery concept drawing

(Brooklyn Center, MN) – Surly Brewing Founder and Owner, Omar Ansari, and Head Brewer, Todd Haug, did a talk at last weekend’s SAVOR event. The biggest revelation from Ansari…

“We have a meeting next week to hopefully nail down a 8.5-acre spot in the middle of the Minneapolis-St. Paul area real close to [the University of Minnesota]. The idea is to bring Linda [Haug] on and have her handle the food component. [The facility will have] a 100-150 seat restaurant, 300-seat beer hall and a two-acre beer garden. […] We ordered a German 100-barrel Rolec system that should be showing up January, 2014.”

Any ties to U of M? Ansari donated $50,000 to the university last year though he graduated from Macalester.

Ansari did not reply to a request for more details on the property or the meeting that would have taken place this week. The company has been working with TEGRA Group to help facilitate landing a spot for nearly ten months. Once the company has found a spot, it will begin to create what it announced in February of last year, a $20 million destination brewery.

In other news…

– They are adding six more fermenters to the existing facility this month and that will be it for the current space

– The reason Haug may be able to make Pentagram an annual release is because he has dedicated a 60-barrel fermenter to only Brett beers.

– The audio is here. The guys discuss the anniversary releases, Furious, Darkness and the whole shebang over the course of the 73-minute talk.

– Bonus: someone made a 90-second song based on Furious.