Narragansett Creates H.P. Lovecraft Line of Beers

The Rhode Island brewery explores their macabre side on their 125th anniversary.

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Following the massive success of their all-Rhode Island partnership with Del’s Lemonade last summer and Autocrat Coffee Syrup this winter, Narragansett is pairing up with yet another iconic New England brand: legendary writer, H.P. Lovecraft.

Narragansett will release their new Lovecraft Honey Ale on January 19, the birthday of Lovecraft’s biggest literary influence, Edgar Allan Poe. The collaboration with Revival Brewing, another Rhode Island product, will be the first “chapter” in a four-part series of beers celebrating Providence’s most famous native son.

“We’re celebrating our 125th anniversary here and this is kind of an extension of what we’ve been trying to do at the brewery, bringing back this great brand through a historical lens and local authenticity,” says Narragansett Beer President Mark Hellendrung. “One of our ‘Gansett Girls is actually a librarian and she had this idea, knowing that Lovecraft’s birthday was in 1890, the same year our brewery was founded. We thought it was a great way to give Sean Larkin, our brewmaster, a platform to really experiment with different styles of beer.”

The Lovecraft Honey Ale is brewed with Summit and El Dolorado hops, honey, and five different types of malt, including honey malt. Hellendrung describes the beer as a “full-bodied ale that’s very hop-intense.” The beer clocks in at a respectable seven percent alcohol by volume (ABV) and has artwork provided by graphic designer A.J. Paglia.

“This one is really a prologue about H.P. Lovecraft himself,” says Hellendrung. “We picked one of his stories, ‘The Festival,’ where there’s a space mead consumed by a winged creature. What’s great about craft beer is that it’s really breaking the style boundaries and guidelines. So, this is Sean’s interpretation of a modern day honey mead through the medium of a beer.”

The next beer in Narragansett’s Lovecraft series will be an “Innsmouth” old ale, which will be released in April. Inspired by the novella “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” Hellendrung says the second canned release will be an “exploration of our darker side,” referencing the brewery’s closure in the early 1980s. The old ale will have artwork by Jason Eckhardt, an artist and employee at The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.