Upright/Burnside Brewing Captain Beef Heart

mmmm...Beef Heart Beer

Is it a beer or is it an animal product? The new beer from Upright Brewing made in collaboration with Jason McAdam of Burnside Brewing is actually named in honor of late great musician Captain BeefHeart. Fittingly, the beer is made with real beef hearts grilled by the brewers themselves. If you haven't happened upon this outlandish creation at the Grain & Gristle already, it is making its official debut with a meet-the-brewer event today at Belmont Station.

The musician Captain Beefheart (real name Don Glen Vliet) was a multi-instrumentalist singer/songwriter who blended many genres, from rock and blues to psychedelia. This is not the first Upright Brewing beer to be named after Captain Beefheart; the popular twice-brewed English-style IPA "Safe As Milk" is named after one of the Captain's albums. It's no surprise then to hear he was friends with another artist who is well loved by Upright's brewers--Frank Zappa. According to Wikipedia, "Van Vliet developed an eclectic musical taste and formed "a mutually useful but volatile" friendship with Frank Zappa, with whom he sporadically competed and collaborated." The Captain died on December 17, 2010, and his birthday was just the other day. He was born January 15th 1941.

Captain Beefheart © anton corbijn

The idea behind Captain Beefheart the beer was to create a complex beverage with savory flavors rooted in the kitchen. The beer started with a malty copper colored base, then added Turkish bay leaf, long pepper, and sixty pounds of charred beef hearts to the kettle boil. Rounding it all out was a fermentation carried out by a soft-finishing Scottish ale yeast. The beer drinks with pleasant aromatics from the spices and has a light minerality accentuated by the pound of salt also thrown in the kettle. 5.85% ABV

Thursday 5pm
Meet Upright's Alex Ganum and Burnside's Jason Mcadam. Other special beers on tap 
Belmont Station
4500 SE Stark
Portland, OR