Of all the things to make beer out of, beard hair was not one I saw coming. I’m still waiting for confirmation that this isn’t an elaborate and extremely odd prank, but here’s how I heard the story so far.

White Labs — a company that produces yeast for brewing — initially tested three samples from the Oregon-based Rogue Brewery’s hopyard, and none of them were suitable to be brewed. (This is all according to the sarcastic Rogue Wire Service blog, so take it with a grain of beard hair.) The surprising part was what happened after that, when White Labs decided to entertain the notion of growing yeast out of well-bearded Rogue brewmaster John Maier’s beard.

Well, the second time’s the charm?

The researchers allegedly took nine follicles of Maier’s beard and placed them on separate petri dishes. Voila, they got themselves some yeast. Rogue’s blog says the company will use the new yeast strain created from the beard to make a new beer called “New Crustacean.” It will be released early 2013, apparently.

That’s appealing.

While I wait for both Rogue and White Labs to call me back and confirm this is a real thing, I can’t help but wonder about the logistics of this alleged discovery. What on Earth got the lab to invest time into culturing Maier’s beard hair? Does the lab have this much fun all the time? What else have they done in there that hasn’t worked?

Then again, I probably don’t want to know.

Whether it’s a joke or not, some folks are taking the report pretty seriously. I’ll update when I find out more.