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| "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him" |
The release of the second collaboration between norwegian black metal kings 1349, Lervig Aktiebryggeri & Surly Brewing is nigh. A propper american pale ale with orange & lemon peel this time nailing it to the cross with 6,66% abv. The official release was already back in June when the band was on tour and had the release at the Amsterdam Bar & Hall in Minneapolis together with Surly Brewing. Apparently Todd Haug (headbrewer of Surly) had the opening act for them with a drone/ guitar piece and played together with the band covering Celtic Frost. This time it`s the European release, brewed at Norway`s Lervig Aktiebryggeri in Stavanger by mr Magic Mike himself, Mike Murphy. The venue for the premiere will be at Cafè Fiasco in Oslo Wednesday the 22nd of July.
I let drummer and visionary artist Frost reveal the history & intention of the beer.
"It is a time of joy and celebration here in the 1349 camp. Some nine months after the launching of our first brew made in collaboration with breweries Lervig (No) and Surly (Us); the 1349 Black Ale. The 1349 Black Ale is a Massive Beer of Chaos – an abundance of tastes and aromas like turkish coffee, licorice, dark chocolate, forest and eucalyptus; a crossover of several different powerful beer styles, and with a potential for developing complexity.
We are now ready to give birth to our second brew. Ladies and gentlemen – we bring to you the 1349 Pale Ale!
Our 1349 Pale Ale stands in stark contrast to the Black Ale with it’s straightforward freshness, crispness and thirst quenching qualities, while actually remaining tied to it’s black brother through several shared qualities and taste elements. The beer of choice when you want something fresh, fruity, crisp and hoppy that kick starts you after having shed blood, sweat and tears. To produce this effect, there is a rather great deal of both bittering and aromatic hops, some serious dry hopping of course, there is acidulated malt, orange peel and spruce. The taste profile has been discussed and analysed, thought about, dreamt of, tested, and evaluated.
The ideas for the 1349 Black Ale and the 1349 Pale Ale were developed in parallel; from the beginning of it was an essential part of the 1349 beer project to create two very different brews that would make up opposite forces in a duality. We felt that the Black Ale needed to contain all that darkness, power and chaos that 1349 is all about and display it in a signature style, while the 1349 Pale Ale should be far less esoteric and rather address the trivial and physical side of the music/beer intersection – the perfect ale for quenching your enormous thirst after a show.
Fundamentally, the 1349 beers come from our collective interest in craft beers and our intention to make this our very own project. With the great breweries Surly and Lervig collaborating with us, and hence make such a project possible, we have been able to realise our ideas to their full potential.
The 1349 Black Ale has been met with a fantastic response, and we look forward to brewing more batches of that strange old brew. But today the hoppy bells chime as we raise our glasses filled with the delicately crisp 1349 Pale Ale. Revel in Dionysian pleasures. Skål!!"
Frost
Todd Haug also gets a few words about the beer and the show they did.
"To really get the beer as dry as Frost wanted it we carefully titrated the wort Ph well below normal beer. In addition we used bitter orange and lemon peel in the whirlpool,this adds dryness and citrus notes that work great with all the Equinox hops we used! The release show was great,I personally opened it with a improvised solo drone/looping guitar set. I joined 1349 for a Celtic Frost cover of Usurper for the encore!"
Celtic Frost is one of the early thrash & black metal pioneers of the 80`s, and one of my favoritt bands, which I had the pleasure of seeing live in 2006, before they broke up and later transformed into Triptycon, another great band and tourmates of 1349. I also had the pleasure of tasting the beer just a few days after bottling, just as I did with the 1349 Black Ale. It is very refreshing indeed, with nice tones of pine, tropical fruit, mango and orange/ lemon zest (the Lervig version does not include Equinox hops due to availability). The lable illustration is from Norwegian painter Theodor Kittelsen, a 19th century artist who really captured the mysticism and dark powers of Norwegian folklore and horror. This is a beer you can zip from a tulip glass and snob your way into Hell, or do it proparly and drink it straight from the bottle while stabbing someones eye out with your armwrist spikes at a 1349 gig. It`s still black metal even if it`s pale. It`s as if it has been brewed in a Massive Cauldron of Chaos!!!!
"Chaos-wielder
Massive Cauldron of Chaos
Hellfire-wielder
Massive Cauldron of Chaos"
Lervig Aktiebryggeri
Surly Brewing
