Every Bear Poops. Sometimes it’s in Your Beer.

The Super Bowl airs this Sunday and amid all the commercials, you might catch one for Columbia Sportswear, the outdoor gear company. The makers of tough weather clothing partnered with Oregon’ Breakside Brewery to create a lager called Nature Calls brewed with… yup, you guessed it: bear poop. 

Oh, you didn’t guess that? Scat from a bear isn’t the first thing you thought of when you thought of a crisp lager brewed by one of Oregon’s most respected breweries?

“When we say engineered for whatever, we mean whatever,” said Joe Boyle, Brand President at Columbia Sportswear in a press release. “If Mother Nature hurls bear poop at us, we’ll ferment it into a frosty pint. From the inside of a bear to your mouth – this beer is the sh*t, and we’re making nature’s crap easier to swallow.” 

The craft beer industry has been known to throw just about anything into beer recipes. There have been some doozies in the past from moon dust to wasp yeast, the infamous Rogue Brewing Beard Beer, and just about every confection and culinary ingredient one can think of. Breakside isn’t even breaking new ground with this ingredient. A dozen years ago an Islandic brewery released an ale brewed with whale testicles that were smoked over sheep dung.

Columbia offers this official description of the lager saying it is : “made with water from the Bull Run River infused with a hint of bear poop collected trailside in Montana from the American black bear, malted grains grown in the Pacific Northwest, and a touch of honey and huckleberry.”

Ben Edmunds the brewery’s founder and brewmaster joins this episode of the Drink Beer, Think Beer with John Holl podcast to talk about what went in to making this lager and if it’s just a bit of marketing and if it’s safe to drink.

“The storytelling and yarn spinning, is coming from Columbia, not from, not from Breakside,” says Edmunds. “The the spoiler alert here, right, John, is that there’s no actual bear poop in the beer.”

Hear the whole conversation on the Drink Beer, Think Beer podcast.

Or download via Overcast, Stitcher, Podcast Addict, or wherever you download shows.

This Episode is Sponsored by

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