Three Floyd's Gumball Head

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Clint

Forum jester...🏅🏆
Supporting Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2016
Messages
18,840
Reaction score
17,018
Location
North Wales
Hello all...
I have a little book listing 300 beers which I have a nosey through now and then and the above mentioned sounds like something I want to try...
It's basically 50/50 ish pale/wheat,a bit of caravienna,all Amarillo hops,fermented with and "English" yeast I think the brewery uses Wyeast London (?).
Anyone tried it? What's a good dry alternative for the yeast?
Cheers!!
 
Was it London Ale III? If so I believe the new Lallemand Verdant is an equivalent dry.
 
Just looked at the recipe, think I'll brew some and I'll use CML Kristallweizen. I like the idea of a hoppy wheatbeer.
 
I've done extract and all-grain clones of this. It's very good. Pretty sure I used US-05 or BRY97, for an American wheat it's all about the wheat and hops, neutral yeast profile is what you want.
 
I've brewed something similar inspired by this beer, a couple of times. Never tried the original though. I used MJ West Coast and WY1272 American Ale II.

Liberty Bell would be a good choice, imo.
 
Thanks for the replies...
I need to order some bits for this...I might give the Liberty Bell a go I think.
The recipes I've looked at say to do the first hop additions as first wort...is this worth doing?
 
Thanks for the replies...
I need to order some bits for this...I might give the Liberty Bell a go I think.
The recipes I've looked at say to do the first hop additions as first wort...is this worth doing?
I've first wort hopped a few times and found it gives a less harsh bitterness.
 
I have tried to make it and wasn't too happy with the first edition as I did not use a hefe yeast, I think I tried a kveik for it. I think that is important for the bubblegum flavours. I need to look around for the yeast I was going to try it with next. Funny enough I just bought some wheat to do this one.

edit: but it looks like they use their house pale yeast for it. I am also not sure if amarillo gives a lemony finish? There must be simcoe in there.
 
Last edited:
Looking at brewing this one next weekend, I just bought a couple packs of Amarillo BBC hops. Any chance you could post the recipe in the book?

I am also thinking about using amarillo only in the whirlpool and dry hop. I have had a few beers with it in boil additions 60/15/7 etc... and it always seems to give me a earthy mushroom bitterness that I don't really like with very little citrus.

An American wheat ale brewed with white wheat and dry hopped with hand-selected hops from the Yakima Valley. Bright and refreshing with a lemony finish. Style: Wheat Beer. IBU 35 ABV 5.6%


Based on that description and a couple others I have read it seems like they are using most of their amarillo in the whirlpool and dry hop. Anyway here is where I originally saw this a while back and this is what I did. I got some help from three floyds on this one. For your grain bill try 25% wheat, 5-10% aromatic, and the rest 2 row.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/gumballhead-inspired-wpa.92976/
Anyway the lemony finish is what throws me off a bit for it and I think they are using simcoe as well as amarillo. I might try this combo. Also there is a lot of noise about red wheat on the internet but the brewers say white wheat.
 
fermented with and "English" yeast I think the brewery uses Wyeast London (?).

As an older brewery, 3 Floyds settled on their yeast before the modern craze for 1318 London Ale III - they use Wyeast 1968 London ESB Ale (as do eg Firestone Walker).

As such you won't get an exact dry match, but you could do worse than M36, Verdant, cool Voss etc.

Classic American wheat beers use a pretty neutral yeast unlike their European cousins - something not a million miles away from a kolsch yeast, but the Chico family (US-05, BRY-97 etc) would do.
 
I have this book too, haven’t yet brewed anything but check out the three floyds dark lord........... I am definitely going to have a go at this.
 
I have a friend who sometimes brings me Three Floyds beers and before all this covid nonsense, a bottle of Dark Lord was hinted at.

No reason for this post other than to tell someone who has more than a passing interest in beer.
 
After some vicious googling I've got this...
Gumballhead Clone
American Wheat
OG 1.052 FG 1.011
ABV 5.2%
IBU 35.9
6.25 SRM
20 litres
Based in 65% efficiency
2.6kg wheat (50%)
2.2kg pale (42.3%)
400g caravienna (7.7%)
Hops...Amarillo (7.9 say)
9g first wort 11ibu
9g @ 60 10ibu
12g @ 15 6.6ibu
30g @ 5 6.7ibu
30g @ 1 1.5ibu
40g dry hop,5 days
Yeast US 05...OR whatever....
 
At 70% BHE the above amounts will do 23l at the recipe stats given in Brewers Friend.
The hops fall short for the req 35 IBU...at 7.9% AAU...just adding 2g to each addition listed,except dry hop,sorts this.
US 05,as does Verdant IPA,as expected gives a lower fg of 1.010 but gets the 5.2%abv,the Lallemand London gives a fg of 1.018!
 
Clint, whats the reason behind adding first wort hops and a 60 minute addition? I would have thought that one or the other would suffice and with Amarillo being primarily an aroma hop, I would choose to combine both as a FWH addition.
 
I'm just quoting recipe I've found online...
The fw hop is supposed to give smoother bitterness.
I'd be tempted to push most of the hops to 80c hop stand and double the dry hop... description of the beer says it's all about the Amarillo.
I'll do my first attempt as per recipe and see how it goes.
 
I am going to do this tomorrow, I might swap the MO for a lager malt. I also caved on the yeast but then will add some WB-06 to get a bit of Hefe'ness in there.

1.70 kg​
Maris Otter Malt (Muntons) (5.9 EBC)​
64.2 %​
0.75 kg​
Wheat, Malt (Simpsons) (4.0 EBC)​
28.3 %​
0.10 kg​
BEST Caramel Aromatic (BESTMALZ) (50.0 EBC)​
3.8 %​
0.10 kg​
Honey Malt (49.3 EBC)​
3.8 %​
8.00 g​
Hallertau Magnum [10.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min​
17.5 IBUs​
30.00 g​
Amarillo [9.20 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 20.0 min, 90.0 C​
18.2 IBUs​
1.0 pkg​
Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) [50.28 ml]​
-​
0.1 pkg​
Safbrew Wheat (DCL/Fermentis #WB-06) [50.28 ml]​
-​
30.00 g​
Amarillo [9.20 %] - Dry Hop 3.0 Days​
0.0 IBUs​
30.00 g​
Simcoe [13.00 %] - Dry Hop 3.0 Days​
0.0 IBUs​
 
Some comments online suggest there's Simcoe in it but most say all Amarillo...but, the recipe could change I suppose.
Yeah the lemony description gets me though, I get tons of lemon from simcoe but not much from amarillo.
I would imagine the original recipe was all amarillo but then the amarillo shortage in the 2008/9 probably made them mix it up a bit.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top