Brooklyn Brewery’s Defender IPA first caught our eye about three years ago because of its interesting packaging. As we reported in our Japan Beer Times #27 Postcards column, where we featured a picture of the case, the illustration of brewmaster Garrett Oliver was by acclaimed comic book artist Khary Randolph. Earlier this year when we caught up with Garrett Oliver for a wide-ranging interview, this beer was one of the topics we discussed. The story of its inception is an interesting one.
Oliver reminisces, “Defender was originally a rotating series of beers for Comic-Con, a major comic book, fantasy and science fiction convention in New York. We’re all geeks and into this stuff, and were happy to be involved as producers of the ‘official beer’. The whole concept came around the idea of having a character, and the character would be drawn by a different prominent comic book artist every year. Once we started bottling, it would be on the label, too. We also wanted to make the beer different. There were dark versions, light versions, reddish ones. We finally decided to do a modern, American-style IPA. Defender is a great name, we realized, so we thought, ‘Why don’t we keep the name and stick with one kind of beer?’ We did just that and made Defender IPA a permanent beer.”
The beer is a relatively low-alcohol (5.5%) Golden IPA that is highly drinkable. It uses popular American hops–Amarillo, Simcoe, Cascade and Centennial–for rich aromatics and ample but not overpowering bitterness. The clean body gives way to prominent notes of tropical fruit and a dry finish like a good champagne.
Unfortunately, the plans for the artwork didn’t pan out in the long run. Brooklyn Brewery’s own designer, Steven Doyle, came up with artwork they wanted to use, but in Europe (an important export market for Brooklyn Brewery), anything with a comic-like appearance is construed as an attempt to appeal to children. Since they couldn’t use the label in Europe, and since producing different packaging for different markets was a non-starter, they sadly let the idea for a comic character slide.
Oliver says, “We’ve switched to a label which has comic art type/font which would have been common in the 1970s. I have a lot of those old comic books so I recognize that old style even without the character.”
Japan, as most people know, has a love affair with characters. There’s a character for everything! Maybe artists out there can come up with some ‘Japanese Defender’ artwork… Send us what you come up with. We’ll share it with Oliver and the world! Contact: info[at]japanbeertimes.com
