How does a brewery collaborate with a tiki bar?
With a rum-touched ale drenched in tropical fruit, and a drinking mug shaped like a warped human skull, of course.
Give Astoria’s Fort George Brewery credit for devising the perfect nod to Dead Man’s Isle, a downtown tiki bar located a short stroll away on Duane Street.
The craft brewery recently unveiled its special brew inside the dimly-lit oasis, where the ghost of a shipwrecked sea captain allegedly prowls.
The beer is called Mutant Skull – borrowing the name of one of the bar’s most popular cocktails. It’s typically poured into skull-shaped mugs created by the bar’s affiliated local art studio, Munktiki.
There was no anniversary to mark, as is common in other non-brewery-to-brewery collaborations. The notion sprang from the creative folks at Fort George who simply dig the vibe at Dead Man’s Isle and wanted to do something fun.
After consulting with the bar owners, they settled on a challenge: create a beer inspired by a drink on the establishment’s expansive cocktail list.
“We just wanted to do it,” Fort George marketing director Brian Bovenizer recalled. “We said, ‘Let’s try to make a beer that tastes like this cocktail.’”
The relatively small batch was made in the R&D brewery inside the Lovell Building. It started with a blonde ale that was aged in rum barrels for nearly a year before being transferred to a tank. Then came the tiki-style ingredients: lime, coconut, pineapple, banana and guava.
At a pre-release party, Mutant Skull was poured for guests along the glass-topped, artifact-filled bar at Dead Man’s Isle.
Mutant Skull is apricot-hued and hazy with inviting fruit aromas. It goes down slightly tart, but finishes sweet and refreshing. (8 percent ABV).
While the brew was being aged, Miles Nielsen of Munktiki designed a special glazed ceramic skull mug in shades of slime green and lilac.
Fort George artist Will Elias came up with a fittingly spooky label illustration, which he described this way: “I was imagining an ancient skull that has been submerged in the ocean for eons, suddenly awakening on beer-release day.”
Dead Man’s Isle, which opened in 2022, is delighted with the tribute.
“They did a great job,” said Nielsen, a skilled ceramicist who owns the bar with his wife, Annie Van Dyke. “I’m excited. I couldn’t be happier about it.”
The collaboration mugs are available for purchase for $45 at the tiki bar and Fort George. Grab one while you can: only 250 were made.
The beer is on tap and in bottles – also for a limited time.
