Summit Brewing’s ‘Cold Play’ On Coldplay

When a City Paper reader referred to the St Paul-based heritage brewery as the “Coldplay of Minnesota Beers” she didn’t mean it as a compliment… and now Summit Brewing has crafted a response.

Here’s the deal…

Last December, when it was reported in the City Paper that Summit Brewing was laying off people for the first time ever in their 30-year history, Sue Bush’s response was cold…

“For too long they we’re the only option in St. Paul…and now that is far from the case. Their brews are obvious, middling, and with very little character or personality. They are the Coldplay of Minnesota craft breweries: aggressively mediocre.”

But she was far from done…

“They need to step it up or they won’t be around long…Look at what Fair State, Indeed, and Dangerous Man are doing!”

And we had to laugh when we learned that the Summit crew had responded to her criticism by brewing a Coldplay beer that literally takes its name, Death and All His Friends, from one of the band’s biggest records, 2008’s Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, often referred to as simply Viva la Vida.

And truth be told, Summit’s Death and All His Friends, a 9.9% ABV barrel-aged Imperial Stout, is a bit of an envelope pusher, a small pilot batch creation that was brewed with “new and experimental ingredients,” and then aged Jamaican rum barrels for 90 days.

So what does a “Coldplay of beers” actually taste like?

Head brewer Damian McConn explained Summit’s brewed response to Sue Bush’s caustic comments this way…

“With a complex malt bill, hops from the UK, and our house ale yeast all contributing to Death and All His Friends, you might pick up on flavors and aromas of chocolate, leather, tobacco, and smoke, plus a dark roasty character and a nice, dry finish like the piano melody in a Coldplay song,”

Summit Brewing’s good-humored comeback may also have been a necessary one for a brewery which did not have the greatest 2017 (in addition to the layoffs they also cut back on their on their distribution significantly).

It also serves as a reminder that Summit, a heritage brewer which once had the widest national distribution of any craft brewery in Minnesota, shouldn’t ever be written off…And (like Coldplay) they can still craft a hit.

Summit will be releasing Death and All His Friends as a taproom exclusive at their beer hall on Thursday…