Beer Review: 3 Floyds Brewing Company Permanent Funeral

Brewery: 3 Floyds Brewing Company
Beer: Permanent Funeral
Style: American Double/Imperial IPA
ABV: 10.5%
Character: Brewed in collaboration with the Metal band Pig Destroyer, 100 IBUs
Ratings at time of Review: BA: 98 | RB: 100
Metal Connection: PIG DESTROYER – The Diplomat

BeerMetalDude Rating: 5/5

Beers like this one here is the reason I created BeerMetalDude.com. I knew that one day I would get my hands on these Metal collaborations, or just beers from 3 Floyds, TRVE or Surly, three of the world’s most Metal breweries. I knew I wanted to post up what I thought about these beers once I get them, so I spawned this website.

As mentioned, this is a Metal collaboration beer. It was brewed by Surly with the help of the members of the Grindcore band, Pig Destroyer from Washington D.C., which is a personal favorite of mine. As for the label of this beer, I would expect nothing less than a gruesome looking piece of art. The label of the happily named Permanent Funeral features some sort of creature which is a combination of a spider or beetle body with a large skull of a hog, or possibly wolf, since the label mentions wolf in the description of this beer. There are also 3 open eyes, along with the skull eye sockets on this monster. Blood is dripping from each eye nose hole, and mouth, which features large sharp teeth and tusks. To complete this weird creature is a sword or large dagger stabbing right through it’s body, causing more bleeding. This is a label that could possibly haunt your dreams. Imagine this thing crawling towards you, or just hanging on your wall, snarling and growling at you. Awesome!

I poured this beer into a very appropriate glass, a 3 Floyds imperial pint glass purchased from their webstore. Permanent Funeral poured a hazy bright golden/orange color, reminding me of a pineapple orange juice. The beer was topped with a 1 inch white foamy head. There was excellent retention, leaving a sheet of lacing down the glass.

There was a ton of fruit aroma, a big citrus orange, and pineapple up front, followed by floral, a hint of earthiness, and a good amount of resinous dank. Fresh biscuits, pale malts and grains round out the aroma, giving this nose a full body, and plenty of character.

The palate, like the nose, was first hit by a pineapple-orange juice flavor with strong citrus orange peel, and pineapple fruit. There were hints of lemon and lemon zest, some floral notes, along with earthy and danky hop characters. Picking up some malts and grains, and fresh baked biscuits, as well. Aftertaste is citrus orange juice.

The body was a bit heavier than medium in thickness, and a mouthfeel that was both smooth and astringent with an acidic citrus bitter bite. Decent carbonation, and a super dry finish help this beer with it’s overall flavor profile.

Overall, I did give this beer a 5 out of 5 rating. I was really trying to not just do that for the sake of just doing so, but this beer really stood out and delivered great flavor and body. A 5/5 rating was unavoidable here, in my opinion. I know a lot of people call Craft Beer a hipster thing, but when breweries such as Surly collaborate with great Metal bands like Pig Destroyer, it reminds us all that Craft Beer can be loved by everybody. I really wish that some of these Metal head elitists would put down their whiskey, PBR, or Lone Star tallboys for a quick second and try a good fuckin Craft Beer that they are so afraid of!

Metal Connection: This was an obvious choice of which band I was going to use here, since the God damned band collaborated on this fuckin’ beer, after all. Of course, I am talking about the Grindcore band, Pig Destroyer. Pig Destroyer was created by Agoraphobic Nosebleed main man, Scott Hull. They have been together since 1997, and is still alive and kicking today. In their career, they have released 5 full length albums, and plenty of demos, splits, and EP’s. As I love their early work, I fell in love with the Metal Connection song, “The Diplomat,” which was featured on the bands 5th studio album, Book Burner, released in 2012. The music video created for this song is so visually awesome on so many levels. The diplomat brings the guns to a foreign world of apes, they all start killing each other. Finally one kills the man, only to take over the man’s role, then leaving the planet, leaving 1 remaining ape as the sole survivor with the guns. Simply amazing video. The song is brutal, and catchy. A very likable tune to get you in the head banging, beer drinking mood!