Brew Review – 3 Floyds

It appears that I may be making the rounds of some local breweries on a regular basis, so why not share my review? Maybe because my readers are all over the world and unlikely to visit a local Chicago area brewery? That’s never stopped me before from writing about stuff that nobody wants to read.

We visited 3 Floyds Brewery in Munster, Indiana, just a few miles southeast of Chicago.

Is that all full of beer? My friends that I went with certainly hoped so. Me? Not so much. I was the designated driver. Sigh!

This was my first road trip with this group. I was not sure what to expect of this group. Sure, I have known one of the guys for over 25 years. Another guy is a music collaborator of mine. Have you forgotten our latest song? No, but you’re trying? And the other guy I see a couple times a year at parties and around town. But we’ve never done anything as a group other than being in the same fantasy football league. Ah, the ties that bind.

I’m not a huge beer drinker, so a brewery tour is just a perfect road trip for me … as a designated driver. I was not coerced. I volunteered, mainly because I trust myself more with one beer under my belt than I trust others with more beers downed.

We arrived …

It was definitely not fancy. I was expecting more motorcycles outside, but there were none. Inside was even more basic, so that explains my lack of pics of the inside. But the beer artwork is certainly unusual, some based on underground cartoons. Here’s some of the beer logos from the tour …

And if you clicked on the brewery’s web link above, you will see some of the Grateful Deadish, underground cartoonish, psychedelic artwork used on their beer cases, bottles, etc. But we they were there for the beer. Me? I was there for the designated driving.

I’m a big enough guy that I figured I could handle one beer, so I knew I had to make it a good one. I sampled the Gumballhead citrus wheat beer which vies with their Zombie Dust pale ale as their most popular. It seems to me that Zombie Dust is maybe just a bit too powerful of a name for a pale ale. The Gumballhead failed to thrill me, so I looked further, and take a look at what I spotted …

I had never had a Gose beer before. Gose is a beer infused with a certain bacteria to give it some sourness and it does not have any bitterness from hops, my biggest complaint about some beers. There are few foods better in this world than Michigan cherries, so I had to try the combination. It was magnificent. Although not a beer drinker, I could become one if I was able to drink cherry Gose beers on a regular basis.

While 3 Floyds offer their beer for carryout, unfortunately they do not bottle their Cherron. After the trip, I tried to find a cherry Gose beer at the local supermarket which features 2 walls of craft brewed beers, but I was unable to find any type of Gose beer. Oh well, now I have a good excuse to head to the liquor store for more research!

To wrap up my review, my fish sandwich was good at 3 Floyds, the french fries were good enough to eat without ketchup, and my Cherron Gose beer was extraordinary. Before my visit to 3 Floyds, there was never a reason to visit Munster, Indiana. Now I can find three good reasons to stop in Munster, Indiana … one reason for each of the 3 Floyds.

Stay tuned for the next Brew Review.