Beer of the Week: Three Floyds' Gumballhead

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The post originally ran on the AOL website Slashfood.

Anyway, so I'm shopping at my local beer shop, Brooklyn Beer and Soda, when I look into the cooler and what do I see? A row of Three Floyds' beer, including this lovely beauty you see to the right. I rubbed my blurry eyes: This was like seeing a unicorn driving a Cadillac. Three Floyds is a staunchly Midwestern brewer, with no distro in NYC. "How'd you get this?" I asked the counter lady, more excited than a man should be about a 12-ounce bottle of mood alterant.

"Someone brought it up for us," she said, smiling slyly.

"I will marry you," I said, buying a bundle of beer.

And so that's how I came to write about Gumballhead for my beer of the week.

The cultish Indiana brewery, founded in 1996 by brothers Simon and Nick Floyd and their dad Mike, is known for heavy metal, huge imperial stouts, and pugnaciously bittered IPAs. But the everyday staple is Gumballhead, named after a cartoon cat created by underground comic artist Rob Syers. (The anthropomorphic punk feline is featured in the label.) Gumballhead is brewed with white wheat and plenty of Amarillo hops, a Pacific Northwest variety known for its sweet citrusy scent, here leaning toward sun-ripened lemons.