This one hasn’t been brewed in a few years either, but it marked the first time I realized how fully a band and a brewery could collaborate, and it seemed to help set off the current boom of collab beers. When I interviewed Clutch vocalist Neil Fallon in 2011, he explained the brewing process: “When we say the band did it, the band was at the brewery. We put the malts and the barley in the mill, and [added] the hops and the sugar and the whole thing. In some ways, I’m more nervous about this beer than I was the last record. Beer geeks are much more merciless than metal purists.” He needn’t have worried; New Belgium can sometimes seem to be coasting on their mediocre flagship beers like Fat Tire and Ranger IPA, but their Lips Of Faith series almost always yields tremendous results. The Clutch beer was an 80/20 stout-sour ale blend, and it remains one of the high points of the series. This is another case where the band’s well-documented love of beer — guitarist Tim Sult is known for including a six-pack of local beer on the Clutch tour rider in every city — clearly rubbed off on the end product.