diff --git a/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/retry.py b/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/retry.py
index dbc605a4c..7ab5b6e62 100644
--- a/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/retry.py
+++ b/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/retry.py
@@ -84,6 +84,6 @@ class RetryMiddleware(object):
             return retryreq
         else:
             stats.inc_value('retry/max_reached')
-            logger.debug("Gave up retrying %(request)s (failed %(retries)d times): %(reason)s",
+            logger.error("Gave up retrying %(request)s (failed %(retries)d times): %(reason)s",
                          {'request': request, 'retries': retries, 'reason': reason},
                          extra={'spider': spider})