Dan the Automator, Dogfish concoct a beer/music mash-up

An electronic whiz who is comfortable incorporating jazz, funk, pop and soul into complex hip-hop textures, Dan "The Automator" Nakamura's latest project uses more old-world ingredients. Apples, for instance. And cilantro. 

Like lots of Nakamura's other concoctions, "Positive Contact" is a mix-and-mash of seemingly random components. Unlike any of them, however, it is a beer.

This week, Delaware's adventurous Dogfish Head Brewery began shipping a beer-and-vinyl box set dubbed "Positive Contact," a limited-run collaboration that pairs a 10-inch white vinyl of Nakamura's Deltron 3030 music project with six 750-ml bottles of an ale brewed with Fuji apples, cayenne peppers and cilantro. It should be hitting California retailers in the coming days, if it isn't on shelves already.

Embarking on the project, Dogfish founder Sam Calagione assigned Nakamura perhaps the dream homework assignment of beer nerds everywhere: "I sent Dan every single beer that we make in bottles," Calagione says. "Every day or two for a month-and-a-half he would send me elaborate tasting notes on each beer. The goal was for me to figure out his palate."

Dogfish has a reputation as one of the more experimental -- or simply weird -- craft breweries. The beer designer was the focus of a Discovery Channel series "Brew Masters," which tracked Calagione's quests around the world for ancient, unexpected ingredients. Among its 34 beers are ales concocted with pinot noir juice and the "chemical analysis of 3,000-year-old pottery fragments found in Honduras." The company's former assistant brewmaster, Jon Carpenter, is the lead brewer at L.A.'s burgeoning Golden Road Brewing.

Dogfish's music connections run deep. Chicago resident Jon Langford, leader of long-running punk outfit the Mekons, has designed artwork for the brewery (Langford also paints, and Calagione owns one of his portraits of Johnny Cash). Dogfish has also released a Miles Davis-inspired beer (Bitches Brew) as well as one named after Robert Johnson (Hellhound on My Ale). Last year, Dogfish unleashed Faithfull Ale, a beer that celebrated the 20th anniversary of Pearl Jam's "Ten."

The Pearl Jam ale has been retired, and Calagione doesn't expect to ever bottle it again. It is, as Calagione says, "a collector's item," and bids for bottles on eBay start at about $40. "Positive Contact" sets will be limited to a run of 8,000, and Dogfish is suggesting retailers sell the box set for between $60 and $70. 

Nakamura says expanding into beer is a natural evolution. "It’s all sensual," Nakamura says. "Music is sensual. Food is sensual. Beer, wine and alcohol are sensual. So this all makes sense. Whether you make food, wine, music or beer, you’re dealing with emotions. That’s why there’s a certain kind of camaraderie among the elements."

Bonnaroo, Outside Lands to celebrate the art of craft beer

Bonnaroo, the Southeast's answer to the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, launches Thursday in Manchester, Tenn., and it boasts a lineup that includes Radiohead, the Beach Boys, Skrillex and a seminar on the various hop varieties used to brew beer. As destination festivals around the U.S. have gradually ramped up their VIP offerings, Bonnaroo and its sister festival Outside Lands in San Francisco have evolved into music-focused events for the gourmand. 

The four-day Bonnaroo will boast its own house beer, a light blond ale brewed by Chico's Sierra Nevada, and showcase additional offerings from 21 breweries at its Broo’ers Festival, a tent Bonnaroo co-organizers Superfly Productions have erected for 10 years now. At the Broo’ers Festival, guests can buy pints as well as smaller tasting-sized portions. Additionally, Superfly's Outside Lands, slated for Aug. 10-12 at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, will add a mini-craft beer festival of its own for the first time this year.

"Beermakers and winemakers are just like musicians," said Bonnaroo co-founder Jonathan Mayers. "People seek them out. There’s so much crossover between the worlds. You go to Bonnaroo and discover a new band, but you can also discover a new kind of beer."

Among the breweries slated to appear at Bonnaroo in 2012 are Brooklyn Brewery, Magic Hat, Schlafly Beer and Streetwater Brewing Co. Bonnaroo is also expanding its Broo’ers University program, in which those from the craft beer industry will host discussions and seminars about the beermaking process. The aforementioned Sierra Nevada will stage a "Hops 101" session, while representatives from Schlafly will discuss beer and comfort food pairings. 

"We experimented with it last year, and it was a hit," Mayers said. "The thing is, you’re in Bonnaroo for four days. You can get tons of music in, but people want other experiences, whether it’s going to the cinema tent or checking out some comedy. There’s enough time for all of it. You’re basically living there for four days."

Golden Road has a dream: Craft beer at Coachella

With more than 120 artists representing the worlds of rock, dance and hip-hop, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival likely has something for even the most eclectic of tastes. Such variety, however, doesn't extend to the festival's beer options.

Though Los Angeles and its surrounding areas have experienced a growth spurt of late when it comes to craft beer, as evident by the success of such breweries as Golden Road, Eagle Rock, Hangar 24 and many others, Coachella fest-goers have but one option, a certain green-bottled lager from the Netherlands. Sponsorship rules mean L.A.'s nascent Golden Road Brewing won't be able to bring its beer to Coachella's Indio, Calif., site, but its team will get as close as it can.

Golden Road has begun lining up events starting Thursday night in the hopes of exposing some of the thousands who will descend upon Indio to craft beer. The beer made by Atwater Village-based Golden Road, which has been brewing for less than a year, isn't yet available outside Los Angeles County, save for a sprinkling of Orange County accounts. On Thursday night, the eve of the first of two Coachella weekends, Golden Road will bring its staff and beer to the Rancho Mirage outpost of Burgers & Beer.

Is Kiss' Gene Simmons L.A.'s latest craft beer champion?

When Gene Simmons, leader of KISS Inc., spoke to Pop & Hiss early Friday about the grand re-opening of his El Segundo bar/restaurant Rock & Brews, he bragged that the establishment would allow customers to feel just a little bit like rock stars. Yet it soon became evident that the space couldn't replicate all of the perks Simmons enjoys. 

When a local police officer pulled over to place a ticket on the illegally parked motorcycle of a Rock & Brews employee, a trade was offered. Perhaps the ticket could be skipped, bar employees inferred, if a meet-and-greet with Simmons could be arranged? Moments later, a member of the El Segundo police force was posing for photos with the rock 'n' roll veteran. Please, said the officer, don't photograph the badge, as department rules would then forbid him from placing the image on Facebook. 

Rock & Brews patrons likely won't be afforded the opportunity to park as they please without repercussions, but when the bar officially opens Friday evening, it will offer more than 50 taps dedicated to craft beer and a menu overseen by Michael Zislis of Rock'n Fish. Ultimately, Simmons has other visions.

"I'm such a blessed guy, and for the rest of the people in the world, they may not actually be able to be a rock star, but we can make them feel it," Simmons said. "This is the experience of being a rock star. You will be waited on hand and foot. If we can arrange it -- and this is not a bad idea -- we'll have the most beautiful girls peeling grapes for you, your highness. It's the idea that you're special and should be treated that way."

Ghostface Killah: Famous rapper -- also a limited-release beer

Billed as "the hottest beer this side of hell," Twisted Pine's Ghost Face Killah lands with the kind of bold proclamation that the rapper of the almost identical name can effortlessly toss off at a moment's notice. While the Wu-Tang vet spells Ghostface as one word, the brewers at the Boulder, Colo.-based Twisted Pine likely wouldn't quibble with the star over grammar.

After all, they had hoped to get his blessing.

"We tried to get in touch with him, but we didn't receive a call back," said GM Jody Valenta. "We wanted to contact Ghostface to set up a partnership with him."

Valenta, whose official title is "agent of chaos" (not related to Colorado's Professor Chaos), said the beer is brewed with five different peppers, including the Bhut Jolokia, a pepper so hot it can be weaponized, and one sometimes referred to as "ghost pepper."

Ghostface, therefore, can't take full credit for inspiring the name of the beer. Valenta clarified that, technically, the brewery lifted the name from a character in the kung-fu film "Mystery of Chessboxing" -- and then double-checked with its lawyers. 

Ghost Face Killah the Beer is not available in Southern California, and the pepper-infused wheat beverage will be limited to about 100 bottles. It was first introduced last year, and Westword's Jonathan Shikes gave it a detailed review, writing "the smoky warmth of the peppers travels down in the back of your throat, where it simmers. Take another sip, and your lips start to burn, like you're wearing pepper Chapstick." 

Ghostface is far from the first artist to get the craft beer treatment: Last year, Petaluma's Lagunitas issued the malt-heavy Wilco Tango Foxtrot. Though partially inspired by shortwave radio lingo, Lagunitas founder Tony Magee confessed a love of Wilco to Pop & Hiss, and sent the band a case of the beer. Additionally, adventurous Midwestern brewery Three Floyds created a beer inspired by instrumental Chicago metal act Pelican. The limited-run doppelbock was named the Creeper. 

-- Todd Martens

Image: Ghost Face Killah the Beer. Credit: Twisted Pine

Kid Rock's taking aim at Bud with new beer

Oh, Kid Rock. When he’s not mashing up Lynyrd Skynyrd with Warren Zevon to produce a massive hit ("All Summer Long"), pimping babes decked out in decidedly non-P.C. Confederate flag bikinis for said song's video or enticing young men to think about joining the National Guard, the self-proclaimed “Son of Detroit” is trying his hand at creating the next great American beer.

“It’s going to be called ‘Bad Ass Beer,’ '' Rock boasted to Rolling Stone magazine recently from his suburban Detroit studio, where he’s hard at work recording the follow-up to his multi-platinum 2007 release, “Rock N Roll Jesus.”

“It just tastes like good American light beer…an everyday beer,” he raves, extolling the fact that his brew will be an all-American endeavor, right down to the hops. “It’s creating jobs in Michigan at the brewing company. We know people are hurting here so we’re trying to take that whole approach.” 

While we wait to see if Bad Ass Beer will come to usurp the likes of Natural Light and Coors as the beer of the American working man, what’s even more intriguing to us is the series of competitor-mocking advertisements Rock is working on to promote his new golden dew.

“There’s one where it looks like the Budweiser horses, and they’re all up in the air, just freaked out, like they went haywire, and whatever they ride on is smashed up, and it just has my beer sitting in the front. It says, ‘Bad Ass. And ‘…and the horses they rode in on,’ ” Rock tells the rock mag. “There’s another one where we [mess] with Corona. We have an old rusty truck with no tires on it and it’s sitting on the Bad Ass beer, and it says, 'The only way you’ll ever see a lemon on it.' "

But for Rock, it all boils down to flavor: “It’s good, and there’s no aftertaste,” which sounds like as good a tagline as any -- definitely better than meaningless marketing boasts such as "triple-hops brewed" or "beachwood aged."

Expect Bad Ass to hit shelves in time for Labor Day festivities. Beer run, anyone?

-- Scott T. Sterling

Photo: Associated Press