Not to be outdone by Silverchair drummer Ben Gillies’ pre-mixed cocktail range or AC/DC’s line of branded plonk, Frenzal Rhomb are the next Aussie band in line to launch their very own beverage.
The playful punk mainstays will be releasing a vegan friendly, wheat-free Belgium pale ale at the end of the month following a special launch show as part of Melbourne’s Good Beer Week. The band partnered with Young Henrys, the Newtown brewers behind You Am I’s craftily named craft beer Brew Am I, to launch Frenzal Rhomb: The Beer.
“Kind of like Frenzal Rhomb: The Musical, but beer,” vegetarian frontman Jay Whalley tells TheMusic of the band’s drinkable merchandise. “I always had a dream that we were going to do this one day, and now it’s finally happening.”
Frenzal Rhomb: The Beer will be available on tap at the launch show at Melbourne’s Corner Hotel, on Friday 23rd May, with plans to bottle and sell the vegan beer commercially following the launch. In fact, it was the ‘Rhomb’s Good Beer Week gig support act Front End Loader that inspired the decision to partner with Young Henrys. “Kind of like Frenzal Rhomb: The Musical, but beer.”
“[They] told me they were making a Front End Loader beer and my instant reaction was, ‘How fucking dare you not make a Frenzal Rhomb beer’, and I guess they felt pressured enough to submit,” Whalley says, beating their fellow-billed band to the punch.
Luckily, the band also forewent Young Henrys’ idea of implementing a micro-brewing technique using human hair. When the Frenzal frontman had the ‘unique’ fermentation process explained to him, he gave the appropriate answer. “I [knew] exactly what [they were] thinking and it’s fucking disgusting,” he recalls, “you’re not using one of my dreadlocks to make our beer… luckily for everyone involved we did not do that in the end.”
Another wise move was not naming the pale ale after Whalley’s tapeworm incident (the one in which last year the band cancelled on dates with the Descendants after such a creature burrowed its way into his brain). “We did initially want to call it Pig Worm, and sort of have a Central American-infused vibe,” he jokes, “maybe a little worm at the bottom, but again, common sense have prevailed.”
Frenzal Rhomb: The Beer is the perfect fit for the Aussie punks, after all, they’ve got an album named after Italian brew San Souci, and have their very own lager-swilling set of songs in 1997 tune ‘Ship of Beers’ or even better, ‘Let’s Drink A Beer’ from 1999’s A Man’s Not A Camel. (Sorry, British India, looks like they’re sorted.)
You’ll be able to hear that soundtrack and exercise your beer arm at the launch show, let’s just hope Frenzal Rhomb: The Beer tastes a little bit better than that Silverchair cocktail range, La Mascara. Trust us.
Frenzal Rhomb: The Beer Launch
Frenzal Rhomb versus Young Henrys for Good Beer Week
Friday 23rd May – Corner Hotel, Melbourne
w/ Front End Loader and Clowns
Tickets: https://corner.ticketscout.com.au/
