Brewery: The Bruery / 3 Floyds Brewing Company
Beer: Floyd D’Rue
Style: American Porter
ABV: 14.7%
Character: Aged in rum barrels for one year. Vanilla bean, orange zest, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, star anise, nutmeg and fresh ginger were added just prior to bottling.
Metal Connection: IN FLAMES – Murders in the Rue Morgue (Iron Maiden cover)
As my good friend, Jorge Espinoza of Brewerianimelogs is a member of The Bruery’s Reserve Society, I benefit by being able to get to try some of their special release beers. Floyd D’Rue is one of two collaborations between The Bruery and 3 Floyds Brewing Company. The two breweries worked together to create a brand new recipe for an Imperial Porter, then the beer is aged in rum barrels for a year. Finally, as they were going for a Spiced Rum theme, they added vanilla bean, orange zest, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, star anise, nutmeg and fresh ginger just prior to bottling.
In the Craft Beer world, both The Bruery and 3 Floyds are top of the kingdom in many people’s views. They both make excellent, and larger than life barrel aged beers, so getting this beer along with the other collaboration between these two power houses was truly an honor, and I have to throw a huge thanks to Jorge, once again. Go click on the link to his site right now, and read his awesome beer reviews.
I used an American Pokal glass for this session. Floyd D’Rue poured an opaque, deep black coffee-like color, topped with a half inch dark tan foamy head. This beer had good head retention, as it reduced down to a thin layer atop the beer, leaving line after line of sticky web-like lacing down the glass. Very good looking beer, for sure. One look at this beer in the glass, and you can immediately know that this beer will be a beast.
The aroma was pretty complex, some might even say chaotic. Knowing the history of these two collaborators, complex and chaos just might have been what they were going for. Some of the spices used here give this beer a similar aroma to everyone’s favorite Fall season style, the Pumpkin Ale, with hints of cinnamon and nutmeg. The added clove and star anise give off a black liquorice, or fennel-like aroma. With each inhale, other characters make their appearance. There are hints of chocolate, citrus, vanilla, molasses/brown sugar, rum, coffee, ginger, and some oak wood. Imagine a chocolate coffee pumpkin spice gingerbread cake. The spices are strong in this one!
The taste is exactly like the aroma… All over the place! First thing to mention here is that I now want to make a chocolate coffee pumpkin spice gingerbread cake. Does this exist? Just like the aroma, with each sip, a different flavor profile shines through on the palate. Flavor hints of pumpkin pie spice, like cinnamon and nutmeg are dominant . Chocolate, coffee, black liquorice, molasses/brown sugar, mild ginger and very mild traces of orange citrus. This beer is boozy, strong alcohol burn. Tastes of rum, and a toasted wood are also pretty dominant here, masking a lot of the said flavors here. They really need to be searched for behind that strong taste. The aftertaste is full of barrel wood, and pumpkin pie spice.
The body is pretty thick, as it should be for such a bold, big beer like this. Besides the hot alcohol sensation, this beer has a pretty smooth mouthfeel. In my opinion, this beer drank like a strong milk stout, pretty smooth and silky. Light carbonation.
Overall, I will say that this one is in 2nd place when it comes to the two beers that these two breweries collaborated on. Rue D’Floyd (Imperial Porter aged in bourbon barrels, and added vanilla beans, Portola coffee, TCHO cacao nibs and cherries), which is the other half of the collaboration was definitely my favorite. You can read that review here.
Metal Connection: Seeing the name of this beer, only one song really came to mind, and that was Iron Maiden’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue”, which is from the band’s 1981 full length album, Killers, recorded with ex-vocalist, Paul Di’Anno, before the voice of Iron Maiden that we all know and love, Bruce Dickinson took over the kingdom. Well, since Floyd D’Rue and Rue D’Floyd are gross mutant twins of each other, which are nothing alike, I chose to pair this beer with a mutant twin of the same song. Here is a cover version from In Flames, a Swedish band, who at one time was an excellent underground Melodic Death Metal band, until they went “mainstream” and now play a Metal/Alternative Rock style, appealing to the Hot Topic kids across the world. I am all for a band progressing, but in this case, I much prefer the older material from In Flames. This cover song was released in a remastered version of the band’s 1994 EP, Subterranean. Just to show you the band’s change in style, here is a song called Stand Ablaze from the same 1994 EP, and here is a song called Rusted Nail from the band’s newest 2014 full length release, Siren Charms. Worlds apart!
Beer Metal Media 
My Ninja!! With the Goods :P… LOL I like how you describe it as their own Kingdom. True True, then we got some Stone Collabs with practically all Kingdoms … and then …oh man!! :O