I’m beginning to become quite interested in doing beer exchanges through the mail. This is mostly due to the crazy success I’m 
seeing my friend Gavin have with it. Evidently he put up a little notification on the Beer Advocate message board that he was looking to make some trades, and he managed to get a ton of stuff that we can’t get in this area. Thankfully, being a fellow beer lover, he gave me one of the beers from a six-pack of Zombie Dust he was sent in a recent trade. I really need to start trying to find different beers from around the US that I haven’t had before. Regardless of that, I’m glad that I can mooch off a friend for now.
I was extremely happy to get this beer from him about a week ago. We made a second attempt to get out to see a UFC event in our area. Ironically enough, we watched the Korean Zombie dominate in his fight to earn the right to fight for the belt in his weight class. It was a great night of watching fights, but I think my greatest joy came when he gave me my first bottle of a beer brewed solely by Three Floyds. This is yet another brewery I’ve never had the pleasure of enjoying. I did happen to have one of their brews they did in collaboration with Mikkeller. I’ve enjoyed a few different beers from Mikkeller, but I have never had the pleasure of cornering a bottle of Three Floyds. Therefore, I was hopeful it would be a great first try.
Three Floyds is brewery out of Indiana, but it seems to be well-known all across the U.S. The first thing that is noticeable about this bottle is the crazy amazing artwork on the bottle. Evidently Three Floyds wanted to create a label that would really jump out at the consumer, thus they got the comic book artist Tom Seeley to create a pretty impressive piece of artwork. Floyds lists this beer as their undead pale ale. I had to go check to make sure, but it is in fact an American Pale Ale and not an IPA. However, it is quite a heavily hopped APA. Looking it up on Beer Advocate, it received a 99, so I was even more excited about giving this beer a try.
This beer poured out a slightly golden color with some ample amount of orange and amber. There is some moderate white head that develops on the pour; however, you really don’t get much of any lacing after giving the liquid a little twirl. A little slight light sticky residue clings to the glass, but it really isn’t much to speak of. There is definitely a slight hazy quality to the beer; however, you can see some of the faint carbonation in the glass despite the haziness.
The very floral and herbal aroma of the hops overwhelm the nose on the first smell. There is a small amount of pine mixed in, but it seems as if the smell is mostly dominated by an extremely herbal quality. The hops smell fresh. Combining with the hops is a lot of citrusy grapefruit aromas. While these are quite prevalent, they still manage to get dominated by the fresh hop aroma. The herbal nature of this makes the beer very earthy as well. Surprisingly there seems to not be an overwhelming amount of malt here to help balance the hops. I was curious if it would be the same way on the taste.
I’m not sure if the malts are very light, or if they are simply overpowered by the hops, but they don’t seem to really be very obvious here. The hops are certainly in the driver’s seat. The paltry malt intro lasts a very short period of time before the hop kick comes in. The hops start off rather herbal and floral with a very modest pine nature. The really big citrusy grapefruit notes follow the hops; however the hops don’t disappear or dissipate. They do manage to get a little tang towards the end of the flavor profile; however, they manage to stay quite herbal and floral throughout the majority of the tasting. Overall this beer finishes quite fresh and earthy. I feel like they took the hops right off the plant and dropped them in here.
The mouthfeel never once becomes syrupy at all which helps the beer to seem quite fresh throughout its entirety. There is plenty of carbonation and tons of herbal hops that allow this beer to not become too heavy at all. Interestingly, the only other noticeable quality to the mouthfeel is the fact that this beer has a somewhat dry finish. I think it adds to the freshness.
While this was the first Three Floyds beer I’ve had, I’m really hopeful this won’t be the last one. The only thing that annoyed me about this beer was that I only had one of them. I have a new mission and that is to find more Zombie Dust. If anyone out there wants to make a trade for something in the DC area, please let me know! I need more Three Floyds!
Teacher Grade: A+
lyricslibationsandlife 