IX. Three Floyds (★★) Toured March 12, 2011

The much awaited East Coast Brewery Tour Trip Reviews start here.

We arrived at the brewery, located essentially right on the Illinois-Indiana border, an hour before they opened. Thankfully, we had a lot of things in our car to keep ourselves occupied, including the professional video camera we borrowed for the trip. When the brewery finally opened at noon, we sat ourselves down at the bar to wait for the brewery tour that started at 1. Rather than asking us what we'd like to order, an intimidating man with a shaven head began grilling us about why we had a camera. We said we were videotaping our road trip. He didn't like this one bit, and unkindly told us we weren't allowed to film any of his employees. The way he approached the situation, you would think that somehow somewhere he was once assaulted by a cameraman. 

Beer (★★) - The flight we paid for at the bar consisted of Pride & Joy (American Ale), Robert the Bruce (Scottish Ale), Alpha King Pale (their flagship, an APA), and Dreadnaught (IIPA). Unimpressed that I was only receiving their year-rounds, I requested to try their Behemouth on tap. Just like the name, it was a pretty intense beer, brewed to wine-strength. Everyone in Wisconsin of course knows (or should know) Three Floyds' Gumball Head -- it's their most popular beer. I never was a huge fan of Gumball, although I had friends who were, so it was pleasant for me to discover other brews the brewery made. But frankly I was as equally unimpressed as I was with Gumball. It felt like the brewery was doing 70% of what it could with these all-amazing-sounding beer names. When I drink a beer called Alpha King, I expect it to taste like an Alpha King, and I expect to feel like an Alpha King as I'm drinking it. 

Tour (★★) - Our tour guide, who got hired because, as he said, "If you hang around anywhere long enough, they will put you to work," just took us to the center of the warehouse-turned-brewery and began telling us about the history of Three Floyds. We didn't have to move much because from that center spot we could see the entire brewery, which was fairly unimpressive and in fact quite dungy. It took some prying but I got to learn some things that were unique and interesting about the brewery. I was informed about Dark Lord Day, which sounded more like a gimmick than anything, the collaborative beers with DogFish Head, and the house artist, Chris Berg. Overall, the tour was somewhat informative but not at all memorable. Saddest of all, there was no free beer. 

Brewery (★★) - The brewery opened in 1996 and has been, as our tour guide stated, in a perpetual state of expansion ever since. It was started by Michael, Nick, and Simon Floyd. Michael is the father of the two; Nick is the president/brewmaster; and Simon is the silent partner. In the past four years, the brewery has grown at a rate of 30% -- in 2010 they produced 16K bbls; in 2011, 19K. Currently their beer can only be found in Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and parts of Wisconsin, because they just simply can't meet the demand. Their goal, like any other brewery's, is to grow at a rate that doesn't sacrifice their quality. Currently, the brewery consists 4 full time brewers, 2 engineers, 2 keggers, 5 bottlers, and of course zero advertisers.  The brewery itself has plenty of room for more equipment -- it's just a matter of when.