3 Floyds "Alpha King" Pale Ale

I get it. I understand that there are people out there who are fascinated with the number 666. I don't know for certain that the 3 Floyds, with some kind of samurai devil creature on their bottle, intentionally targeted 6.66 as their ABV, but I'm more than a little suspicious. They wouldn't be the first people to do it. Unfortunately for all of them, I round off to the nearest 10th. So, the mystique is lost on me.

The beer is the color of tarnished copper or, if you prefer, a mahogany wood. The off-white head has very small bubbles, and those bubbles leave lacing. They also leave a nice, uneven coat of foam across the top of the beer once everything settles. The aroma seems like more malt than I would expect from a pale ale, but I'm probably thrown off after all of the IPAs that I've had lately. It's got citrus, but that's on top of a spongy bread. It smells pretty good.

First sip is generally pretty mild. There's a surprising amount of sweetness to the beer, and that is offset by a certain amount of tart and a little chunk of bitter. The citrus is doing its job of making the beverage more lively than a lager, but the malt is firm and sedate, so it has a soothing effect. If I were sipping guy, I think I'd be pretty happy with this beer.

Tip-in is moderate carbonation burn with caramel, orange rind, lemons, and grapefruit. The middle is much more aggressive than the sip was; the fruits stir up a lot of spices and the malt turns into toffee and bread as the carbonation cranks it up a notch and citric acid piles on. The finish is a sudden drop of sweetness that I didn't even know had been there in the middle so that it can make room for a wave of bitterness followed by tartness as the malt tries to dominate the trail off.

Bottom line: Good enough.

2.75/5