Beer of the Week! 10/02/23

Grimm Pavilion of Dreams

Normally $18.99 / Now on Sale for $17.96
New England Style IPA

Harold Budd was an acolyte of ambient music who was one of those “musician’s musicians” — your kids aren’t listening to him; your parent’s kids weren’t listening to him; no one’s kids are listening to him; but people like XTC’s Andy Partridge, the Cocteau Twins, and a little known British producer named … Brian Eno were. Of course, Budd also had a loyal following of non-industry fans. Among them are the people at Brooklyn’s Grimm Artisanal Ales, who brewed this beer in memoriam.

Born in L.A. in 1936, Harold Budd spent his teenage years in Victorville in the Mojave Desert. During those years he fell hard for bebop, then went from bebop to West Coast Cool Jazz. In college, in the 60s, Budd caught a lecture by John Cage and was off into the world of experimental dissonance. However, this direction turned out to be just an important stepping stone towards the musical direction that he would devote the rest of his life to.

Turning his back on Cage-inspired works, Harold Budd committed himself to what he would later call, “an ethic of loveliness ... It was a political action. I was consciously dissociating myself and becoming antagonistic toward the American avant garde.” In short, he made music so dreamy, so lovely, and so soothing that it couldn’t help but piss off his former Caged peers. A piece of his made it to Brian Eno, who heard it and then called up Harold Budd to come to the England and make a record. Budd’s first album was Pavilion of Dreams in 1978 for Eno’s Obscure — an imprint under Island Records. Some 30+ albums later, Harold Budd died at the end of 2020 from complications rising from COVID-19. He was 84.

Grimm’s Pavilion of Dreams is a New England Style IPA. We’ll let them say their piece about it. “To evoke the album’s clean, gentle, and radiant softness, Pavilion of Dreams is brewed with both malted oats and malted wheat. Nelson Sauvin, Mosaic, and El Dorado hops bring fruit-forward notes of citrus, guava, red berries, and purple grapes.” We get all that. So, kick back with a glass and let your slow, calm bliss piss off all who would bring dissonance into your life.

(Harold Budd information for this write-up from Simon Reynolds’ fine article on Budd for NPR. Support National Public Radio!)

Bonus Beer of the Week (‘Cause if Hollywood can be addicted to sequels, we can certainly have a second good beer.)

OEC Coolship Lager

Regularly $13.99 / Now on Sale for $12.96
Open-Fermented Unfiltered Lager

The OEC in OEC Brewing stands for the pseudo-Latin phrase “Ordinem Ecentrici Coctores.” It’s constructed to mean “the Order of Eccentric Boilers.” That name is just the tip of the atypical iceberg that “owner/founder/head-brewer/head-blender/recipe creator/label designer” Ben Neidhart has created in Oxford, CT.

Taking inspiration from North German and Belgian beer traditions, OEC dedicates itself to open fermentation brewing. This means that Neidhart and his brewers start by boiling their grains and hops to create their wort in preparation for letting it sit in open, shallow copper troughs called coolships. After transferring the wort to the coolship they open the windows and go home for the night allowing the yeasts and other microflora in the air to begin fermentation. Flemish brewers (and those inspired by them) most famously use this procedure to produce sour ales. So the fact that OEC has produced a lager this way is just nuts!

We had this beer as a Beer of the Week last year around this time and liked it enough to bring it back to see if it was still working for us. It is.

Remember!

You can see our entire beer inventory on Untappd.com!