Dock Street Brewery Is Ready For You To Try Their Wu-Tang Beer
By Michael Cerio
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- From the slums of Shaolin to a pint glass in West Philly. Philadelphia's Dock Street Brewery is debuting their latest beer made with a little help from The Wu-Tang Clan.
Wednesday, November 4th you can get your first taste of "Dock Street Beer Ain't Nothing To Funk With," a brew that has been aged for months while listening to Wu-Tang. The trunk-rattling bass and razor-sharp lyricists of the Staten Island group have been used to move the yeast and create different flavors - while also giving it an added dash of ruckus.
Even before being tapped, the beer and the brewery have received national headlines. According to Head Brewer Vince DesRosiers though, it's all the result of a joke.
"We were walking around the brewery and we come up with puns non-stop about stuff, and we just started to go off on a trail about rap songs. If we could name beer after rap songs or after rap groups that we liked" explains DesRosiers. "Any time a beer has kind of a tart character to it or a sour character that it's supposed to have, people call it funky. So I ended up saying 'oh, we should do something called Dock Street Beer Ain't Nothing To Funk With' after Wu-Tang. We all just started laughing. And then we just took it one step further and another step further and we're like 'we should just age it in a barrel and play music around the barrel and see if the vibration stimulates any of the yeast or if it produces any other types of flavors.' So it really kind of started out as a joke, and then it really turned into an excuse for us to play Wu-Tang non-stop for six months."
Now seven months later, this Wu beer is ready to be released. Dock Street Brewery will celebrate with a party November 4th at their brewery (701 South 50th Street). There they will be getting down tiger style by spinning 36 Chambers, showing the Kung Fu film "Shaolin And Wu Tang," and of course drinking some "Dock Street Beer Ain't Nothing To Funk With." The highlight though will be a visit from one of the members of The Wu-Tang Clan.
"I don't think that anybody knows yet but one of the guys will be here" says DesRosiers anxiously. "Between you and I, Inspectah Deck is coming."
"It's so ridiculous," he exclaims. "Got a call from Wu-Tang's manager like, yo we heard what you guys are doing, this is awesome."
It's probably a toss-up on who has listened to The Wu more - Inspectah Deck over a lifetime or this beer for the last seven months - either way you can raise a glass with both of them at this event. Thankfully though, the beer does not taste like Ghostface's Wallabees or any other part of the group. It is a Belgian saison that is "a little fruity" and "easy to drink" according to Vince.
"I was holding off until the very last moment to even test it and the rest of the crew here convinced me on Monday. They're like, listen we have to know if this tastes any good or not" laughs DesRosiers. "It's awesome. It really really is. It was like goosebumps after trying it."
To hear more from Dock Street Brewery's Vince DesRosiers check out the full interview below, and for more details on their event and "Dock Street Beer Ain't Nothing To Funk With" check out DockStreetBeer.com.
