A DRINK and a takeaway is a staple of a Friday night in, but one enterprising couple have combined the two in one bottle by selling pizza flavoured BEER.
The bizarre beverage is brewed by husband and wife team Tom and Athena Seefurth, who gave up their normal jobs five years ago to start making the beer full time – and it will soon be heading for the UK.
From humble beginnings in the garage of their home in St Charles, Illinois, USA, the couple have now sold over 500 barrels of the savoury lager.
The drink is brewed normally for a lager, but at various stages tomatoes, basil, oregano and garlic are added to give the beer its unique flavour.
“The idea was originally just to make a marinade to go in any batter or pizza base,” said 48-year-old Tom. “We were eating some pizzas one day with some wine and the wine just didn’t taste right with the pizza.
“So I went and got some of the stuff we’d made, at this point it wasn’t chilled or carbonated, but when we tried it we thought ‘holy smokes this stuff is good’.
“We were so surprised we ended up sharing two or three bottles, it just went so well with the pizzas.”
After discovering they had a success on their hands Tom, a real estate broker, and Athena, a mortgage expert, set about making more.
“We took it to a pub to market it and people loved it,” added Tom. “So we entered it in competitions and went to supermarkets to let people taste it.
“It went really well, but we had no money, we had to loan USD10,000 to buy labels and kit to print onto bottles.
“But we got in contact with a brewery and in 2008 started brewing it properly. Although the first time we made it we clogged up their equipment.
“Now we have to head down to Milwaukee where it’s brewed to chop up the ingredients small enough for them to make it through the machines.”
The original home brewed beer would have put hairs on your chest, at 9.5 per cent, but now, once the brewing process has been mastered, it sells for USD2.99 at a more suppable 4.7 per cent.
But what does it taste like? “It tastes like normal beer when it’s on your tongue,” said Tom. “But when you swallow you get an aftertaste of pizza topping.
“The best way to describe it would be, that it tastes the way it would if you eat a chunk of pizza, then take a swig of beer.
“It turned out it also goes really well with curry dishes and all sorts. It makes a great batter, we’ve used it for Fish and Chips, British people over here love it when they taste Fish fried in the beer.
“Right now we’re completely out of ingredients, the rush for the Superbowl weekend has been overwhelming.”
