American Craft Beer Week Pt.4

Before we get into business, Friendly Package would like to thank all of the Ball State students that voted for us for “Best Liquor Store On Campus” through Ball State's Daily News. For those of you paying attention, that's two years in a row.

Here at Friendly Package we’re doing our best to get the best beer we can, and beer that you want. Wherever you are in the world come here to FriendlyPackage.com, click on contact us and we’ll do our best to have the beer you’re looking for when you come home. Even if you’re down the block, get ahold of us, or come in and talk to one of our clerks and we’ll do our best to get the beer you’re looking for.

This Week is American Craft Beer Week

It’s Friday, and that means it’s our fourth installment ofthe American Craft Beer Week reviews. Today our featured breweries are Stone Brewing and Indiana’s own Three Floyds. Although Stone has a lot of good beers tochoose from, I don’t care. I’m a Three Floyds fanboy, I’ll admit it. I’ve spentmore than my fair share of money at their establishment, had at least 50 oftheir beers, have a bunch of other merchandise. With this being said, of courseI’m going to review a Three Floyds beer, but which one?

Well, first I thought about reviewing Zombie Dust, BallerStout or Darklord, but you can’t get a bottle of any of those at our store, so what’s the point? Instead I’ve decided to review this month’s bomber, Blackheart.

Three Floyds Blackheart

The old label was pretty rad.

Blackheart is an English style IPA, but what makes it anEnglish style IPA? Does it mean that it’s more true to the style? Not sure, butwhat I do know is that it’s made with all English ingredients, English yeastand aged on oak. Sounds fun, right? Right, and it’s pretty good too.

Once poured Blackheart comes out a red-orange color with abig frothy head. You get thecitrus/floral smells from the hops, a sweet and hoppy smell. You also get a bitof the oak out of it also. Upfront you get the IPA-ness out of it, very similarto the nose, hoppy up front, sweet, citrus, cruises along and the oak comes inat the end piggybacking almost. The aftertaste still has the hoppinesslingering, and you get sweetness, almost vanilla (?) maybe from the oak. A nicemedium body, you get a little booze kick, but not as much as you’d expect from9%.

Give this one a shot, it’s not one of those 3F’s brewseveryone talks about, but it’s solid to say the least.