Ale’s Well that Ends Well
Often reiterated throughout the tour, the baseline of Three Floyds’ credo carries weight on both a personal and a business level: get the best ingredients money can buy, it avows, and enjoy what you drink.
I remember taking a swig of my father’s beer at a family gathering sometime before my teens—that awkward time when taste buds and limbs grow at divergent rates and when the tongue savors as well as it speaks. I recall tasting a sip of it, probably some product of those brewing giants along the Mississippi, and eyeing my father sadly and suspiciously. Watery, foul, piss-golden, and canned: the fuss, it seemed, was bonkers. “Beer is gross,” and that was that.
It was around this time, in 1996, when Three Floyds Brew Pub opened its doors in Hammond, Indiana: a quick jaunt over the skyway and through Gary from Chicago. A labor of love, it began after the younger Floyds had outgrown their home-brewing hobby and realized that a proper brewery was a necessary outlet for their creativity. With their father, Mike Floyd, the brothers Nick and Simon launched their professional careers from a five-barrel kettle in which they brewed some hoppy, daring, and refreshing ales that gained traction in the infantile craft-beer movement in and around Chicago. As the good word spread, the demand increased; and the Floyds acquired larger, more sophisticated brewing systems and a new location in Munster, IN to accommodate the crowds. The new Three Floyds, which opened in 2000, now operates a thirty-five-barrel brewhouse and a lovingly refurbished East German bottling machine at its Munster headquarters.
The pub manager chronicles this growth proudly in his introduction to the brewery tour, standing before some thirty pilgrims with a pint of nut-brown ale in his hand and tattoos along his arms. As we meander through the dimly lit warehouse, we gingerly step over hoses and tubes and past heaping stacks of hops and barley, which wait to be opened, carefully combined, dotingly stirred and observed, and then poured and relished. The manager’s speech is brisk and slightly slurred, owing to a childish excitement for the material and a steady regimen of beer. He stands with upright dignity on a platform between two massive barrels, the hopper and the boiler, and explains the intricacies and methods of brewing—and how Three Floyds has translated the necessities into its own unique philosophy.
The talk wanders from chemistry and the basics of brewing to business philosophy and, as the manager concedes, “soap-box homilies” on the benefits of beer and good consumer sense. Often reiterated throughout the tour, the baseline of Three Floyds’ credo carries weight on both a personal and a business level: get the best ingredients money can buy, it avows, and enjoy what you drink. “We use only the finest ingredients money can afford,” he says. “We do not compromise. We will get the best materials so that, at the end of the day, we give you the very best product that you will put in your body.”
Of course, a disregard for costs seems reckless for a burgeoning business; and Three Floyds, which has attained something of a cult following among beer connoisseurs, certainly struggles to meet a high demand. For this reason, the brewery maintains a constant push towards expansion, and the phrase “greater brewing capacity” rarely strays from the manager’s monologue for more than a minute. As he stands at the end of the bottling machine, however, the guide indicates that the negative effects of expansion are not lost on the management. He explains the process of taping up boxes of six-packs and placing them on a cart headed towards the refrigerator—a task completed, at the moment, by hand; and then he speaks regrettably of the inevitable replacement of that job with a robotic arm in the next few years. This reality, and the increasing difficulty in maintaining a high-caliber and consistent production, has led the brewery to cap its goal at thirty-thousand barrels of beer per year. Once it hits this mark, thereby tripling its current output, the brewery will halt expansion in favor of continued and consistent excellence. As stated in the introduction to the tour, the aim is quality, period; and Three Floyds maintains a business philosophy that seems more than capable of accomplishing that goal.
When the tour ends, my friend and I amble towards the brewpub, and I hope to learn what all the fuss is about. Yet we’re not alone, and a line curls out of the pub and into a dimming, chilling winter afternoon. We opt for takeout, double-fisting bombers of freshly capped ales towards the car, then back over the skyway and into a toasty apartment. We tap the Black Sun Stout and, minding our lesson this afternoon, do our best to seem knowledgeable. Sticking our noses deep into the glass, we comment on notes of coffee, chocolate, and hops. The first sip is sensational; and my mouth, being nearly overwhelmed, is unsure of its proper response. Yet our conversation, which has started on beer, soon drifts to an overdue discussion of our lives—and I suddenly recall why beer is good. It brings people together, just as it did the Floyds.
Three Floyds can be found at 3floyds.com. Tours occur every Saturday, at 3 p.m., at the cost of one dollar.
