Last night, American Craft Beer Week continued at MacNiven's. The pub is doing it up big for ACBW, hosting a different event each night of the week. Last night's event consisted of a complete takeover of the pub's tap lines by Sun King and Three Floyds. The lineups:Sun King:
Wee Muckle Scottish Wee Heavy
3 Kings Pale Ale
ReplicAle Imperial Stout
Naptown Brown
Buffalo Dominator Doppelbock
Cupcake's Revenge Bourbon Barrel & Tart Cherry Aged Chocolate Stout
Three Floyds:
Alpha King Pale Ale
Robert the Bruce Scottish Ale
Arctic Panzer Wolf Imperial IPA
Cortez American Pale Ale
Zombie Dust Citra Hop Pale Ale
Before the tapping, I had my sights set on Sun King's Cupcake's Revenge. Unfortunately, by the time I arrived at 8 p.m., Cupcake's Revenge was long gone. So I shifted my focus to the Three Floyds lineup to the two Three Floyds beers I had not yet tried: Zombie Dust and Cortez.
Zombie Dust
Zombie Dust is a single-hop (Citra) pale ale that has the hallmarks of a Three Floyds pale ale: aggressive pineapple, mango, and grapefruit notes. It's also backed with a nice, somewhat caramel-like maltiness that was a surprise to me because I was expecting a drier beer. That slight sweetness really made this beer for me. I eagerly await Three Floyds' release of Zombie Dust in bottles.
Cortez
Cortez is another single-hop pale ale, the hop in this instance being El Dorado. I've never knowingly had a beer hopped with El Dorado hops, so I didn't know what to expect when I ordered this beer. I thought the beer would have the Three Floyds hallmarks that I mentioned above. But when I took a sip, I was very surprised at what I tasted: a mellow, light-bodied pale ale that wasn't hop-forward at all. There was more of a faint herbal character floating in the background of this beer, with a lightly sweet finish to go along with that character. I thought that Cortez was an excellent beer, but it's probably one that some 3F fans will find disappointing.
To keep up to date on what's happening in Indy during American Craft Beer Week, go here.
And sorry for the amateurish photos. This is what happens when our spiffy, high-tech equipment is temporarily unavailable.
