Brewery: 3 Floyds Brewing Company
Beer: Topless Wytch
Style: Baltic Porter
ABV: 9%
Character: Commercial description: This strong, Baltic-style Porter has a rich, velvety mouthfeel with notes of bakers chocolate and molasses.
Ratings at time of Review: BA: 90 | RB: 97
Metal Connection: WYKKED WYTCH – Wytch’s Sabbath
BeerMetalDude Rating: 4.25/5
Ah yes, another delicious beer with an amazing label brought to us by the Metal heads over at 3 Floyds Brewing Company from Indiana. This brewery is one of the inspirations behind BeerMetalDude.com. I wanted to do a beer review site where I would be able to put the amazing Metal looking beers from around the world. Now, here I am, in the middle of my third year. Thank you all so much for reading my reviews. Cheers, bitches!
Before I go into the actual review, I need to take a moment to thank my good friend, Jorge Espinoza of animebeers.com for once again helping me get this awesome beer into my hands. So many of the beers on my site are made possible by this dude. Check out his great beer review/anime site if you haven’t yet.
Now, onto the label art. This beast is killer! To me, it reminds me of a Psychedelic Rock/Doom Metal album cover. The main art piece is that of a, well, a topless witch. She is Goddess-like with a big headdress complete with goat horns. She is holding a dagger, as if she is partaking in a sacrificial ritual of sorts. Besides the beauty gracing this label, the beer name, Topless Wytch is also a focus, as it acts like the border art around the witch. The wording is drawn out like a killer band logo, with each letter being represented by something different, like a pentagram, a scythe, a pitchfork, a snake, a hatchet, vice grips, a guillotine, inverted crosses, and a winged pair of breasts. My only complaint, but I know why it is done, cause of uptight assholes on the government not letting shit like this slide, but the nipples on the winged breasts are covered by a black box with te words Baltic Porter in it. It really takes away from the art, and sticks out like a sore thumb. This would make an awesome shirt, and poster, by the way.
Appropriately, I poured this beer into a 3 Floyds logo Imperial pint glass. Topless Wytch poured an opaque jet black color with dark cola brown highlights. It was topped with a half inch dark khaki colored foamy head. Sticky lines of lacing were left down the glass throughout this session.
The aroma of this beer had an up front scent of chocolate, followed by brown sugar/molasses, dark fruits like raisins, and prunes. There was a heavy dose of caramel, roasted malts, mild coffee, a little smokiness, charred wood, fire roasted marshmallow, and some grains. The lingering aroma was a bit smoky, and sweet from the brown sugar scent.
The taste was big and strong up front with flavors of roasted malts, chocolate, and brown sugar/molasses. Raisins, prunes, caramel, mild coffee, smokiness, and charred wood flavor make up the body of the taste of Topless Wytch. The aftertaste is chocolate and charred wood.
The body is thick and heavy with an oily and creamy mouthfeel. The finish had a mouth coating slickness to it, which, of course worked out amazingly with the aftertaste of this beer.
Overall, I was impressed by this beer, both in overall flavor, and in label representation. 3 Floyds never lets me down. I know that it takes a special kind of person to really get into the Metal lifestyle, and beliefs of the many artists, but Craft Beer is something anybody with any beliefs and lifestyles can purchase. Maybe it’s the teenage Metal Head still inside of me, but I find it odd when a “Normie” or normal person is seen drinking a beer with such a powerful and evil label such as this. I love to see reactions to such labels. I wonder if there are people out there who are so into their religion that they boycott such breweries like 3 Floyds, or TRVE, or Surly. All I got to say to that is… More for me. Thanks Assholes!
Metal Connection: The spelling of the beer’s name automatically made me think of the Gothic Metal band, Wykked Wytch from Florida. Wykked Wytch has been alive and kicking in the music scene since 1994, with female vocalist, Ipek being the only original member up to date. In 1996, the band released their debut full length album, Something Wykked This Way Comes on their own label Cauldron Records. After it’s release and received critical acclaim, the album was picked up and re-issued by UK based, Demolition Records. The opening track, “Wytch’s Sabbath” is the song chosen here for this Metal Connection. This is a great opening track for this album. The acoustic guitar opening is creepy, and leads right into the head banging riffs of the song. Ipek’s vocals are mean, and brutal. The band is still listed as active, but has not put out a release since 2012. I hope to hear some new music from this band one day. For now though, enjoy this trip back to the beginning of Wykked Wtch.
Beer Metal Media 