I struggled for a couple days trying to pick the perfect beer pairing for this movie and in the end, it was one of those palms on the forehead kinda thing. Furious from Surly Brewing Company is one of my favorite IPA's. It is one of the few beers I miss, living in SoCal-when I lived in South Dakota, I had many opportunities to drink it. While I might be grumpy that I can't get the beer out here it certainly doesn't fill me with a viral-like rage contagion. Which is good for everyone.
28 days later is a great twist on the zombie genre. Jim wakes up from a "coma" (Sound familiar, Walking Dead fans?) Not quite zombies -they can be killed without removing or destroying the brains- but rage filled beings that will not stop until they have torn every living "unraged" thing to pieces. I struggled for a couple days trying to pick the perfect beer pairing for this movie and in the end, it was one of those palms on the forehead kinda thing. Furious from Surly Brewing Company is one of my favorite IPA's. It is one of the few beers I miss, living in SoCal-when I lived in South Dakota, I had many opportunities to drink it. While I might be grumpy that I can't get the beer out here it certainly doesn't fill me with a viral-like rage contagion. Which is good for everyone.
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I never really understood why people found this movie horrifying. The concept (a serial killer is killed in a doll factory and his soul is transplanted into a doll) is so over the top ridiculous, that I think it may have been the one that put slasher movies to bed for many years. This perfect beer pairing for this movie is Arcadia Ales' Cereal Killer. Get it? Cereal? Hehehe. One of these 10% beers will help make the movie more beleivable and two of these beers... well you won't care what movie is on. A horror movie list wouldn't be complete without A Nightmare on Elm Street. I found it surprising how familiar this movie was to me, seeing as how I haven't seen it in 25+ years. The clip below contains one of the most iconic scenes* - the one where Freddy stretches his arms out to scrape his finger-knives on the wall. Immort Ale from Dogfish Head Brewery is the perfect beer pairing for this movie. If any of the pscho-killers (Freddy, Jason, Michael) is the most believably immortal, it is Freddy. At 11% this beer will make you feel pretty invincible, up to the point where it will put you to sleep. Sweet dreams. *The scene also features Amanda Wyss, who you might remember her better as Beth from Better of Dead. **On a side note, Johnny Depp was in this movie, too. Just for fun. I love zombie movies, so when I discovered this movie on Netflix you know I was all over it. This movie has a great twist on the zombie genre (told from the zombies point of view) and it's pretty funny, to boot. I love the zombie vision throughout the movie, it makes total sense! How can you not pair Zombie Dust from 3Floyds with a zombie movie, right? A 6.5% undead pale ale*, full of hop flavor and aroma will be a welcome refreshment after all the nutritious, mineral-y brains you've been eating! *Their description. This is THE scariest movie I have ever seen and in my opinion, it is the reigning king of the "what you don't see is what scares you" genre. The movie does a great job of freaking you out with shadows and low-tech special effects - the most effective horror graphics in my opinion. I've only seen the movie once* and that may be the only time I ever need to see it. The beer pairing for this movie gives a nod to the scene where the beast/ghost walks through the baby powder and leaves the first empirical evidence, besides the shadows and air puffs under the sheets caught on video. At 15%, The Beast from Avery Brewing Company could be as frightening as the movie. Good thing it only comes in 12oz bottles. *Although I've seen all the sequels, they're pretty scary but nowhere near as scary as the original. The lighter side... although they still give me the chills.
This is one of the best "disturbing" horror movies, in my opinion. Sure, the whole Leatherface is gonna cut you up with a chainsaw and his crazy Grampy is gonna put you in the best damn chili you ever tasted is pretty crazy, BUT, I think the skinny, metal-plated-skull guy is way more disturbing than Leatherface. I'm not sure why it is. Maybe it's that he looks kinda normal, or that he carries around a wire hanger, or that he uses said hanger to pull pieces of his scalp off and eat it OR that he finds enjoyment hitting people on the head with a hammer that I find disturbing. Yep, that's probably it. Chainsaw Ale is the perfect beer pairing for this movie. The name and the fact that it's the imperial or double version matches the fact that I picked a sequel* to feature here. Chainsaw is a limited release beer from Left Hand Brewing so if you can't find it at your local beer store, you can always pick up it's little brother, Sawtooth Ale. I wonder how scary or lethal, Leatherface would be if he had to use on of those giant tree cutting hand saws you see in the label? *Because I haven't seen the original. The Thing epitomizes the horror movie, seclusion setting. You can't possibly be anymore secluded than living in a research station in Antarctica. Add a man-eating alien to the mix, especially an alien that takes on the appearance of the person it consumes enabling it to live among us undetected until it needs to eat again, is horror movie gold. For this hops&horrors beer pairing I picked an old seasonal favorite of mine, Snowstorm from Schell's Brewing Co. in New Ulm, Minnesota. One of the things I like so much about this beer is that the recipe changes each year. The brewery compares this beer to a snowflake, but for this series I will compare it to The Thing, changing its appearance each year. Whichever version of Snowstorm you get, this year's style is a 7% Belgian Golden Strong, you know it will warm you from the inside. or ... the Lego version. Ah, nothing but the threat of communism could've produced a movie like this. And wether it's the body snatchers or the Borg, the most terrifying thing to a "civilized" country is striping our individual personalities and working for a collective good. I haven't seen the original -it's on my list for next year- but this 1978 version holds up really well, even that weird man-face dog thing. As for the hops&horrors beer pairing, the setting for this movie is San Francisco, and my first hops&horrors pick for you would be 21st Amendment's, Bitter American. A perfect pairing since the brewery is in San Francisco (the setting in the movie) and it features a space chimp (a conspiracy theorist's favorite "point of origin" scape goat) on the label. I'm sure the chimp teased those dirty aliens and that's why they are now taking over out planet. You may have trouble tracking down Bitter American outside of San Francisco, but fear not, there is plenty of good SF beer to pair with this movie. Anchor Steam Beer would a perfectly good substitute and one that you can probably find at your local beer store. Feeeeed me, Seymour! Today's hops&horrors beer pairing goes goofy, just because I couldn't pass up a movie that the word horror in it. But that isn't all that makes this movie so great, it also has a soul singing, man-eating plant (that looks a just a bit like a hop) and it features Louis Tully - you know the Keymaster. "Gozer the Traveler. He will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the rectification of the Vuldrini, the traveler came as a large and moving Torg! Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants, they chose a new form for him: that of a giant Slor! Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you! " But I digress.... For this beer pairing, I am getting back at that man-eating plant by suggesting a beer that is full of the freshest hop plant, that I know. Great Divide's, Fresh Hop Pale Ale is a fall favorite of mine and not just because it tastes great. In 2006 a couple buddies and I went to GABF and spent a few days touring breweries before the festival started. We just happened to come across Great Divide, barely 2 years old at the time, and the brew floor was open up to everyone to celebrate GABF. We ended up getting a private tour with the brewmaster (my friend had on a Macallan shirt which happened to be the brewmaster's, girlfriend's favorite Scotch and the reason we got in on tour in the first place) and were poured samples of a brand new beer they were getting ready to release, out of the still fermenting uni-tank. A classic horror movie in the true sense of the phrase. No dated special effects, just good ole shadows in the windows and behind the shower curtains to raise your anxiety. I was also struck by a moment in the shower scene when the curtain is pulled out of the rings. How many times have you seen that in other horror movies? While I was researching this movie I learned a great piece of trivia. This was the movie to ever show toilet flushing on screen. I think my favorite nod to Psycho comes in the movie National Lampoon's Family Vacation. On their first night on the road, Clark tears back the shower curtain and slashes at Ellen with a banana. The gratuitous boob shot (a teenage boy's favorite part of any movie) pales when Ellen tells Clark to go and wash his own front. The beer pairing for this movie comes from a "new-to-me" brewery in Cincinnati called Madtree Brewing Company. You can listen to a interview I did with them HERE. Madtree is a young brewery and they have some "mad" brewing skills not to mention naming skills and all of their beers come in cans. |
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