(Courtesy Frank Zappa Trust / Duck Foot Brewing)

“You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.” – Frank Zappa

Frank Zappa’s family trust is honoring the gonzo musician and founder of The Mothers of Invention responsible for wild albums like Freak Out, with a new beer produced by San Diego-based Duck Foot Brewing. It was crafted using Zappa hops (who knew?), and features a never before picture of the artist playing guitar on the shitter.

For those of you not familiar with Frank Zappa, he was a rock legend that came onto the scenes in the 60s and spun a mad amount of records for at least two decades that challenged traditional conventions.

Zappa’s music combines an understanding of and appreciation for such contemporary classical figures, an affection for late-’50s doo wop rock & roll and the guitar-heavy rock that dominated pop in the ’70s.

(Zappa Trust / Verve)

But as AllMusic reports “Zappa was also a satirist whose reserves of scorn seemed bottomless a even when his lyrics crossed over the broadest bounds of taste.”

The special limited release Why Does It Hurt When IPA?  is a play on the song “Why does it Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?,” the seventh track on Joe’s Garage, Zappa’s triple concept album set in an America where music has been made totally illegal.

According to SongFacts “It was typical of both Zappa’s twisted sense of humor and his disdain for musical or any convention that he would give a song with this sort of toilet humor title the grandiose treatment.

And Zappa’s birthday beer sounds pretty grandiose as well….

Described by the brewery as “wild, improvisational jam of an IPA,” Why Does It Hurt When IPA? Is a 6.4% West Coast IPA (Zappa was born in Baltimore but died in Hollywood in 1993).

“Our new friends (but they feel like old friends) at Duck Foot Brewing Co are making a delicious new brew using the Zappa hop, said Zappa’s youngest son Ahmet Zappa. And “all the Zappa Trust proceeds from this batch will go to support the music community in need.”

“We are so beyond thrilled to be making a beer for one of our favorite musicians of all time,” Matt Delvecchio, Founder, Duck Foot Brewing, who will be joining Ahmet an online meeting in the new year to discuss everything about the beer and take questions from fans around the world.

In 2007, Lagunitas Brewing released a series of beers that honored Frank Zappa and his band the Mothers of Invention, using artwork from the band’s albums.

Lagunitas Founder, Tony MaGee obtained permission from Frank Zappa’s widow, Gail Zappa (who runs the Zappa Family Trust), to use the colorful Mothers of Invention album covers on label artwork for a series of beers that honored Frank Zappa and his band.