13 Apr Dragons and Castles: St. Benedict’s Brew Works Debuts Bombers for Final Season of Game of Thrones
by Mark E. Lasbury for Indiana On Tap
High drama in Westeros requires high gravity. If Winter is here, then some big beefy beers are going to be needed to get us through it. The final season of Game of Thrones commences on April 14th with several questions left to be resolved, but certainly fewer than we had at the beginning of the seventh season. Will Jon and Dany move in together? Maybe Tyrion can use the spare bedroom? What kind of skin care regimen does the Night King prefer?
Never a series to spare the bloody violence, just who will be alive at the end of the series is completely up in the air. Just thinking about it makes me need a beer. Luckily, St. Benedict’s Brew Works in Ferdinand has you covered. There are six episodes to the final season, so Vince Luecke and friends at St. Benedict’s have six high gravity beers with special artwork for release during the season.
image credit: Lily Hillenden & St. Benedict’s Brew Works
St. Benedict’s Brew Works is located on the grounds of the Sisters of St. Benedict Monastery, making it Indiana’s only monastery brewery. The nuns of the monastery spend a good deal of time helping out at the brewery, zesting fruit to be added to beers and having a pint and talking to visitors. The tie in with Game of Thrones is dragons….yes, dragons.
The stories of the Catholic saints in history are rife with dragons, and Daenery’s dragons in Game of Thrones have played roles throughout the series. Their names foretell different alliances, and now we need to see if the Night King’s sway on Viserion as wight-dragon can hold up for long. Truthfully, the stories of dragons with the saints are a lot more straightforward.
St. George tamed and killed a dragon in Libya in the Dark Ages. The dragon lived in a pond and had venom that poisoned the land unless it appeased with human sacrifice. In exchange for having the people of the region convert to Catholicism, St. George beheaded the beast after leading it around on a leash. In another story, Archangel Michael slayed Satan in the form of a serpent, which evolved into a dragon in several major artworks that were produced in the Middle Ages.
As one more example, St. Margaret of Antioch became a very popular saint in the West after the Crusades. Little is known about her life, but it is said that she was imprisoned and tortured when she refused to renounce her faith. She prayed to see the enemy of the Lord, so Satan shown himself to her as a dragon. In some tellings, she showed the sign of the cross and vanquished the dragon, while in others she was swallowed by the dragon and after making the sign of the cross in its belly, the dragon burst apart.
image credit: Lily Hollinden & St. Benedict’s Brew Works
All of those stories are simpler than carefully watching a dragon’s eyes to see if they change colors or interpreting their names to see who is acting as a foil and presaging future actions. Once again, it takes a good beer to preface a discussion on Rhaegel and Drogon and who might end up riding whom. To help with this, St. Benedict’s is coming through with a big beer called Nun’s Dragon around the date of the first episode.
This 9.8% ABV Russian Imperial Stout will be followed by a St. George’s DIPA called Burn Them All (8.4% ABV and 60 IBU), Deliver Us from Dragons St. Sylvester Scotch Ale (9% ABV and 30 IBU), Dark Souls, a Belgian Quad (10.3% and 27 IBU), Dragon Lord, a Belgian Amber (9.2% and 25 IBU), and Sign of the Dragon, an Abbey Saison (8% ABV and 25 IBU).
All the beers will be on tap at the brewery and the bomber bottles will be for sale at the brewery and perhaps a few other locations (at local beer festivals, including the Garden Gate Fest in Huntingburg on April 27 and First City BrewFest in Vincennes on May 18). The taproom and bottle releases will be staggered throughout the six episodes of the final season.
The art for the labels was done by Lily Hollinden, an art major at IU-Bloomington. She has been involved with label art for St Benedict’s since their opening in 2015. The project of dragons and Game of Thrones was right in her wheelhouse, as she and St. Benedict’s have always been inspired by the tales of the saints and the architecture of the local monastery. It also helps that she is a huge Game of Thrones fan.
Join in the fun of the final season of Game of Thrones and toast whoever manages to find their way to the Iron Throne – if anyone at survives. St. Benedict’s Brew Works in Ferdinand will be watching intently and providing you the beer you need to get through this tense time in our lives.
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