went back to my local store to try and get the hopslam, but it wsa a different guy behind the counter.

He came out with some gumballhead instead. Thought it was pretty solid, but I have liked everything I have had from three floyds before.

any recs on something similar to the gumballhead?

A lot of people compare Lagunita's Little Sumpin' Sumpin' but, although I do like that beer, I don't really see much similarity.
Boulevard's 80 Acre is much closer, imo. (I think it's also brewed with the Amarillo hops).

Work out for today on account of snowlolanta. Having a dragons milk for lunch

There are a ton of Bells events/tap takeovers this week in NYC

Bells has arrived

nice, looking forward to some left over kegs.

had another Bourbon County Coffee tonight. I prefer it now to 2 months ago. now it's the nice base beer with a coffee twist, before it was just a massive coffee bomb.

Christ Ryan Hardy sets a perimeter that couldn't contain my beagle. I'm on E03 where he just lost a 115lb blonde woman after having the tactical advantage of her not knowing that he knows she's a bad guy. This was after losing Carlos when Ryan had a gun and the element of surprise.

Also RIP Carlos. Fool.

These twins are creepy.

gumballhead is my first real memory of craft beer, still one of my faves, it's been awhile.

that's the first beer I thought of when reading the post, but keep in mind Gumballhead is a lot better than 80 Acre… still a solid beer though.

Agreed. Gumballhead is by far my favorite beer of that style, if not overall.

The one good thing about all the Zombie Dust [well deserved] hype is that it's now easier to get the GBH.

Too many posts itt between pics.



no pour shot = fail

I have not been seeing gumballhead head, north side of Indy. kind of weird, over the last year or so, I have not saw it in the places I frequent. other 3f stuff seems more common. I dunno, kind of pissed come to think of it. perhaps my favorite brew as well, I bet it's been a full year or more, more for sure. **** vanished from around here. I haven't specifically sought it either, so maybe it's around??

I know u guys were discussing sours, these intrigue me, never had one. first heard of them around Xmas, my cousin told me how they are gaining popularity. I'm not sure there around north side of Indy?? how would I know if it's a sour?

what's no pour shot equals fail mean?

There's been so much price gouging with the 3Floyd's stuff around here (Chicago)...some stores are selling ZombieDust by the bottle. Most the liquor stores only get a couple of six-packs per week and you usually have to ask for them to get it out of the back.
up to $18.99/6 pack...

Also, Horseshoe Hammond has GBH on tap.

pour shot = beer poured in glass = moneyshot

it's not really price gouging to an extent. Glunz took off the restriction of selling zombie dust only in the city, so a ton of store had their allocations nearly wiped out from what it used to be. So, the buying by the bottle is more to extend what meager allocations those places now get (Binny's Lincoln Park used to get something like 15 cases per week of ZD, now they are lucky to get 1).

3F is changing distributors and there will be other 3F weirdness until that change fully happens.

price gouging is capitalism. if a store thinks they can sell something for X, they should have the ability to try. consumers will tell them if they are crazy or not.

I also understand that manufacturers might have demands/requests of where prices should be, so that is a factor. but again, more for stores to be cognizant of than consumers, b/c they are the ones risking getting their allocations cut off.

price gouging, free market, capitalism, supply and demand, etc..
i get it.
i only acknowledged that it was happening.

back to the important stuff.
not generally much of a stout fan, but thought this was great:

there was gumballhead at the payless @ 116th and Olio Rd a week or so ago when i was there. Insta skipped that for a 4 pack of Headhunter though.

Bells Cherry Stout

Snow day selection



Fantastic beer. No head on the pour, strong coffee aroma, complex in flavor, and a slightly bitter finish. You can't really taste the alcohol, which is scary at over 8%.

that stuff s great, the only problem I have is that it always takes me so long to get through one...

I'll let some of the more brewing proficient people describe how to make a sour vs not, but the gist of it is sours are made with wild yeasts strains. The most common that I see is brettanomyces and lactobacillus. These beers are almost always aged in barrels for a long time as these yeasts do their thing and turn the beer tart and sour. Some of the overarching tastes I get with most sours are tartness and sweetness. Most sours have next to no hop profile and lack traditional hop bitterness. You will know a sour because it will taste vastly different than any other 'beer' you've have, oftentimes sharing traits with wine. I'd had sours that taste like Sour Patch Kids. For me, they were an acquired taste but now are amongst my favorites.

If you are in the Midwest area near Indy, you could probably find some decent Goose Island sours. Juliet and Lolita should be available at decent bottle shops, as well they have Gillian and Halia that might cost a bit more but are delicious. I'm not as sure of the distro in Indy, but there are quite a few awesome producers of sours from the Midwest. Rodenbach Grand Cru is usually a reasonable price, available in many places and a good example of one of the sour styles. Maybe try starting there.

if you're looking, these words on the label will be tell-tale signs the beer is a 'sour' which it itself sort of a catch all term for all kinds of beers with tartness/sourness/funkess

brett
wild
lambic
queze
funk

Ty Ty guys. I want to say I've had a lambic. my cousin touched on the "yeast" differentiation. perhaps I will pull the trigger on one soon.

tonight, picked up 3 big boys. Sierra Nevada northern hemisphere wet hop ale, green flash IPA and shoreline brewery Sum Nug

know I've had sum nug once and loved it, it rated the worst of the three when I googled these names, so I should be in for three IMO "goodies"

Does everyone think of beers with brett, and no other spoiling agents, as sours? I don't think they are. To me the funkiness is distinct and, well, they don't really taste sour. My favorite beer and several others high up on the list have brett and I'm not a huge sour fan, though I do really like some that are pretty mild.

I don't know too much about the chemistry, but brettanomyces is a different strain of yeast. It is apparently very aggressive because it doesn't take much and they add it in secondary fermentation, after most of the sugar has been eaten by the regular yeast. Come to think of it, a bottle-aged beer with brett gets funkier over time for at least several months, so it must be eating some sugars that regular yeast doesn't get to.

I think most sours use lactobacillus, which is commonly found in yoghurt, or some other bacteria. Within lacto, as with yeast, there are different strains and some are more aggressive than others so you get a range from a tart taste to mouth-puckering sour.

If you're unfamiliar with sours or beers with brett, I would start with the latter. Try something like the Logsdon Seizoen Bretta (kdawg or someone else could probably come up with a good option more readily available in the Midwest or East Coast) and see how you like it compared to a regular saison.

I live in South Bend and I'm not even seeing it much. When it does come in to the local liquor stores there's usually a 2 bottle limit which is quite tilting. Two years ago you would find it on tap in just about every bar worth going to and it was always easy to pick up a 6 pack.

We've been spoiled by being within the very limited FFF distributing radius. The demand is so ridiculously high, probably the highest outside of Russian River (maybe more?).

completely agree. Brett can be a component of a sour, but a brett-based beer alone most definitely isn't sour in my book. I don't think anyone would call the Green Flash Rayon Vert a sour IPA just because it has brett in it.

re 3F in Indiana: Their distribution has always focused on Illinois. The floyds are from the Chicago area and the main reason they are in Munster was because of easier brewing laws(at the time). Well, that and where else were they going to be able to get a huge tract of land dirt cheap that wasn't in some uber-****ty part of Chicago?

Brett doesn't typically make beers sour, it provides funk, fruit and other flavors, depending on the strain. Brett is a different strain of yeast. You can get those characteristic barnyard, horseblanket, funk flavors from it. On the other hand, there are breweries doing 100% Brett fermentations and they taste like a normal Saccharomyces fermentation.

The sour taste typically comes from bacterias, pretty much only lactobacillus or pediococcus in beer. The sour taste is normally lactic or acetic acid but can have others.