Tag: hefeweizen

Beer Review: Rivertown Famine

This year has already seen the guys at Rivertown release two of the four horsemen. Pestilence back in the spring and War in early summer (my review of War) now comes the third horseman representing Famine. First a little biblical background:

When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come and see!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!” – Source Wikipedia

In summary the third horseman rides a black horse and hands out just enough wheat and barley to keep you alive, barely. Now for Rivertown’s take which comes from my interview with Rivertown General Manager Tom Hall:

The story of Famine is that he rides a black horse through town with a scale handing out barley and wheat, but not enough of either to prevent starvation, thus famine. The beer will be a Bavarian Hefeweizen with a low alcohol content. [Don’t worry too much about that “low alcohol” action this is no 3.2 beer or anything like that. According to Tom it’ll come in around 4.2% or 4.5%.] The low alcohol  is in order to achieve their goals of representing famine. To make sure this is still a good beer they made it with a fuller body. This was achieved with the right yeast and treating the mash in the right way to control the amount of fermentable sugar [which keeps the alcohol low]. Since Famine’s horse is black they added in a roasted wheat to give it a nice black color.

Ok, enough background on to the beer!

Continue reading “Beer Review: Rivertown Famine”

Beer Review: 3 Floyd’s Gumball Head

3 Floyd's GumballheadBrewery: 3 Floyds
Beer: Gumball Head
Style: American Pale Wheat Ale
Alcohol by Volume: 5.5%

Pours a super cloudy dirty gold, like something a miner would pull out of a creek in California. Topped off with loads of fluffy white head full of big bubbles. The head is slowly rolling down as the beer continues to roll up.

Very powerful aroma of grapefruit, lemon, and some peach action.

What a great taste, there is a tiny bit of hop bitterness that kinda reminds of Aspirin, which Google tells me comes from the Amarillo hops they used. There is minimal malt presence though, but it actually results in a pretty balanced beer. There is plenty of the wheat zing present here but it isn’t overly sharp like in many wheat beers.

It’s got a super light bodied mouth feel with some slight carbonation.

This is a great sessionable wheat beer (I’d say summer seasonal, but they make it year round). I’m not too crazy about wheat beers overall but I like to have a few of these each summer. Initially I thought that at 5.5% ABV this was gonna be a little to weak to make me happy but it’s a solid strength, especially if you wanted to session this during a hot summer afternoon.

Oh… and this doesn’t remind me of gum, or gumballs, at all. Slightly disappointed there but according to their site it’s named for some cat from some comic I’ve never heard of, which also explains the cat on the logo. That all is my bad for not knowing more initially about this beer, but I assumed (and I imagine others have and will assume) that this beer somehow tastes like gumballs.