Gumballhead

4.8% ABV bottled

And another beer I was afforded access to only after drinking liquidized pizzabrau!

Every state, even the great Empire State, has its own absolutely insane beer laws. Dumb nanny state laws ostensibly meant to protect ourselves from ourselves. Or, to at least better line the government coffers. One great thing about New York is that all six-packs can be divided up into singles, allowing one to sample numerous beers during a drinking session, never forced to dive in with six of the same. Unfortunately, Illinois doesn’t have such a rule and one is legally constrained to always buy full sixers.

My friends Graig and Sal found this out on a recent trip to Chicago to watch Syracuse whoop Notre Dame in football. Like I do with all of my friends when they travel–friends that will inevitably soon hate me with a passion despite my blog’s great service to society–I sent them with a list of regional rarities I wanted brought back for me. The list mainly consisted of stuff from Munster, Indiana’s acclaimed Three Floyds Brewing Co., a place that doesn’t distribute much farther than the Second City and, thus, one whose beers I had never sampled before.

Upon reaching Chicago, my pals stumbled out into the freezing Windy City and through an act of great kismet quickly found a place called Binny’s, which from the looks of their website is a beer drinkers’ nirvana. My god. At the alcohol “depot,” they found quite a few Three Floyds’ beer, but, of course, all were only available in six packs. Now, Graig and Sal are two very kind people but they obviously were not going to bring me back several six-packs. It would simply be too heavy and where would they find the luggage space, what with all of Sal’s purchases of Syracuse memorabilia and Sears Tower tchotchkes?

Then, the savvy Sal came up with a brilliant idea. Noticing that all Three Floyds’ bottles have the exact same cap, he replaced some Alpha King bottles with Gumballheads, calmly walked to the register whistling “Puttin’ on the Ritz,”* and next thing you know he had pulled off the lamest heist since “Ocean’s Thirteen.”** Take that Illinois!!!  Just try to extradite us all back!

I was most excited to dive into this one, making it my first career Three Floyds’ beer even though I expected it to be nothing more than slightly above average. I was so wrong.

I popped the top and was immediately floored. Wow, what a smell! I usually expect wheat beers to be boring, simple, and standard. Not this one. Much more hops than I expect from a wheat beer. I actually had to look it up on the internet halfway through the brew’s drinking to confirm that this truly is considered a wheat beer cause this could easily be mistaken for a pale ale, and a good one at that. Then again, their Alpha King could easily be mistaken for an IPA so maybe Three Floyds just likes to overhop everything. Cool with me.  I’d put hops in my chef’s salad if I could. Gumballhead has lemon zestiness with unfiltered, hazy yeast sensations as well. Very, very complex for a wheat beer. Truly extraordinary. My first Three Floyds beer and it was a decisive winner!

Furthermore, I’m shocked the ABV is so low. A macro-drinking friend once asked me if I could ever find a low-ABV beer to be a masterpiece. I sheepishly admitted that I probably couldn’t. I suppose I’m a typical craft beer bigot that thinks good beer can’t exsist at such a low ABV, but this proves me completely wrong. I am a changed man. And next time someone claims they drink Corona or Bud Light because it’s hot out, or because they’re drinking a lot that day, or because they need something cool and refreshing–and craft beers are none of those things they’ll say!–point them to this sucker. I could drink this at the beach all day, I could drink this everywhere and anywhere and at any time. In fact, let it be noted that I first drank this on a frigid December night in NYC where I was struggling to stay warm…and I fucking loved it!

Far and away the best American wheat beer I’ve ever had and neglecting further research the best under-5% beer I’ve ever had too.

A-

*Taco’s version, not Fred Astaire’s.

**Let’s talk about “Thirteen” for a sec. Missed it on its theatrical release. A huge fan of “Eleven,” a marginal fan of “Twelve,” I should have liked the, hopefully, end of Soderbergh’s trilogy. I didn’t. It is currently available on HBO On Demand and literally every single time I have ordered it I have fallen asleep before Elliot Gould’s “with” credit appears on-screen. And I am decidedly not the kind of person that falls asleep during movies. Avoid unless you have insomnia.