Heavy metal beer collaborations are becoming a natural happening at Strangeways Brewery as Just Say Go Belgian Black Tripel, a collaboration beer
Heavy metal beer collaborations are becoming a natural happening at Strangeways Brewery as Just Say Go Belgian Black Tripel, a collaboration beer with Iron Reagan, releases on Sunday September 27th.
The Just Say Go Belgian Black Tripel brew thrashes together Richmond full-force metal staple Iron Reagan’s heavy-black creativity with Strangeways’ Brewery to pay homage to metal music.
Having collaborated with a handful of metal bands including Richmond legacy GWAR for their beer collaboration for Gwar Blood, Head Brewer Mike Hiller approached bassist Rob Skotis of Iron Reagan for their own metal beer.
“We were dealing with a thrash heavy metal band with Iron Reagan. With metal bands, an IPA would be the go to. But we wanted to make a black beer that was also drinkable,” Hiller said. “Rob Skotis who is a beer-o-phile mentioned that the tripel was one of his favorites, so we decided to go with that idea and make a belgian tripel beer black.”
Iron-tough and epic, that idea thrown together by Iron Reagan and Strangeways of a Belgian Black Tripel was a success.
Just Say Go is at about 8.4% ABV with the staple sugar added to the Belgian Black Tripel beer from the “blood” of a large thirty-pound batch of Jelly Beans.
Why Jelly Beans?
“There’s this joke about Ronald Reagan being obsessed with jelly beans,” Iron Reagan frontman Tony Foresta said. ”When we were brewing the beer, we had to figure out how to get those Jelly Beans in there.” With multiple attempts from a spectrum of flavored jelly beans, the batch was ready to go after a few months.
But again, what’s heavier than Iron Reagan’s Just Say Go Belgian Black Tripel? The ingenious label for the beer itself.
History buff or not, the beer’s Just Say Go name is a satirical title for Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” (to drugs) campaign back in the 80’s. With former first lady Nancy Reagan at the forefront of a sea of monkey skulls that alludes to Strangeways’ logo, her mouth oozing green jelly bean “blood” works as a heavy metal “allegorical” reference to the band’s name.
“We tend to give our collaborator a lot of leeway in creation of the beer label, and beer production,” Hiller said. “We let Tony Foresta take the lead on the label design and he worked with his guy (Richard “Horsebites” Minino) with designing the label. With a couple of tweaks here and there we were able to create this product design.”
With that freedom, Foresta, Skotis and other members of the band were able to go with a black bottle filled with the blood of Ronald Reagan’s Jelly Beans infused brew and designed with a sadistic Nancy Reagan label on the bottle–an epitomized Iron Reagan heavy metal product.
“This collaboration was a whole creative process, almost like making music. People coming together to collaborate in making this beer. We all stuck our necks out to make something that people can enjoy,” Foresta said. “And with that, beers and bands always mix well.”
Just Say Go Belgian Black Tripel is set to be released with an Iron Reagan beer release with a free, all ages show at Strangeways Brewery featuring Iron Reagan, Valient Thorr, and Give and Unsacred on Sunday September 27th.
You’ll also get your first crack at Strangeway’s Rott in Hell Pumpkin Sour brew on the same day, so make sure to try that out too.
