Because my body is a fat temple, I don’t drink the sin juice known as liquor unless it comes with a little paper umbrella (every man’s gotta have a code), but if I did fetishize beer like many of you do, I’d surely take an interest in Brewery Ommegang’s growing line of official Game of Thrones craft beers.
Thus far, they’ve released Iron Throne Blonde Ale, Black Stout, Fire and Blood Red Ale, and the Valar Morghulis Dubbel Ale, to great success. I don’t know what happened with the Black Stout’s comparatively minimalistic name, but the upcoming Three-Eyed Raven Dark Saison Ale (due in the spring of 2015) surely makes up for it. It also sounds like a tasty homage to the themes that its name represents.
For the new beer, Three-Eyed Raven, the brewers focused on the mysterious animal of Bran’s dreams and visions and its dual nature. “It’s a raven, but then it becomes something else,” says Wetmore. “So we tried to reflect some duality in the beer. A saison isn’t typically dark, but it’s a style you can do a lot with in terms of flavor, so our brewers put a new spin on it and made it a dark ale. We really wanted to reflect that duality of the show theme in the beer itself.”
Showing respect to the Game of Thrones license and the show’s fanbase seems to be a top priority to Brewery Ommegang.
Ommegang’s director of marketing Bill Wetmore says that for each beer the brewers were genuinely inspired by themes, key plot points and characters on the show. Valar Morghulis it was a dubbel for the double-sided coin. Taking the Black Stout just makes sense. Fire and Blood had de-seeded chilis in it to give off some dragon heat. “We start off talking to HBO about what the main themes and narratives being progressed on the show, which ones do we think will continue to resonate with and be important to fans, then try to narrow down the possibilities,” says Wetmore. “After we arrive at one, we’ll sit as a brewing team and talk about how we can reflect that in a beer, through ingredients and style of the beer.”
Obviously, it’s too soon for Ommegang to start talking about the beer that will eventually follow Three-Eyed Raven, but if they’re interested, I’d like to humbly suggest that they make a craft beer called The One Handed Sister F*cker Cream Porter. It’s a dark beer with a bad reputation, but it can also come across as sweet and even noble. Call me.
In all seriousness, even if you’re not a beer fan, this looks like a cool collectible. Scoff all you like at the notion of collectible licensed beverages, but then check out the price of a bottle of that crappy True Blood soda on eBay.
Source: Fast Company