Star Wars and the art of beer drinking

In the slow, stay at home nature of 2020 we have made a decision that we are going to watch all of the Star Wars movies (excl Solo, because I can't quite work out where it fits) in order over the next month of so.

This of course meant we had to start with the much maligned Episode 1 - The Phantom Menance. I remember the excitement when it came out at the cinemas, I remember be underwhelmed rather than angry like everyone else was, I maybe watched it on DVD once, but I wouldn't have seen it in maybe 15 years, so we fired up Disney + and got ourselves a beer.

We decided to stray onto the Dark Side for the first beer. It's from Ballistic Brewing from Queensland in Australia and lacks a clever name it's simply called Mexican Hot Chocolate Stout.

They describe it as follows - The challenge was to take those flavours and apply them to a beer. We came up with a 6.7% Milk Stout brewed with cocoa nibs, lactose, vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon and 2 different chillies.

I was suspicious because I don't like chilli in beer usually, but it's really, really subtle in this beer, in fact you are left we something that is pretty much just a really good, gentle, easy drinking milk stout.

As for the film - well it turns out it wasn't hype - I really is a very poor film, I'm sure it looked good at the time, but now it looks like the equivalent of a commodore 64 computer game, and there are some actors trying really really hard to make that dialogue work, but it really really doesn't, basically if this was the first Star Wars made, they wouldn't have got to Episode II

But we did

In my mind 'Episode II isn't that bad' hell I've even said it out loud so therefore I needed a beer from the 'Light side of the force'

The beer was called Golden Child and is from another Brisbane brewery - Range Brewing and it's a described by them as follows:

Our latest DDH DIPA, fermented with Australian yeast, on a light and fluffy malt bill, which carries an intense volume of hops. We've dry-hopped this bad boy with a juicy combo of Citra Cryo, Citra, Mosaic and fresh 2020 Galaxy. An intense orange colour meets a deep haze in what can only be described as an extremely eye-catching colour. The aroma is powerful and will assault you with freshly cut passionfruit and mango nectar. The mouthfeel is thick and velvety, thanks in part to a big oat addition and a soft and creamy carbonation. You can expect immense flavours of tropical fruit and candied orange with an ultra-low bitterness.

And it is a stunning beer, would be in my top 5 new beers on 2020 - it is exactely as the describe, creaming, dense, sweet, fruity all in one, sort of like a double NEIPA when NEIPAs are really really well made.

It's like summer in a glass and it's wonderful.

As for Episode II - well it's a bit better than Ep 1, it still has pointless CGI action sequences which has nothing to do with the plot, and a plot which is just way to complicated but it's getting us closer to the classics.

Maybe I should have just watched Eddie Murphy's Golden Child instead - although I have a haven't seen that since the mid 80's it probably doesn't hold up.

If you want to read about more Beery adventures, or you have a beery adventure to share you could win HIVE, BEER and OCD with the weekly competition [Beer Saturday] (https://peakd.com/beersaturday/@detlev/beersaturday-week-163) by @Detlev