Dogfish Head releases beer that can process film

USA | There are more than a dozen household uses for beer (excluding drinking it). Now craft brewer Dogfish Head has discovered another one. You can also use certain beers to develop film.

The Delaware brewer has announced that it has produced a gose, a sour German-style beer, in cooperation with Kodak. Called SuperEight, the gose features eight main ingredients. If in a pinch, punters can use it to process Kodak’s Super 8 motion picture film. As Dogfish’s founder, Sam Calagione, had learnt, heightened levels of acidity and Vitamin C in some beers could also be used as a processing agent for some films.

In case younger readers do not remember Kodak – it is a camera company focussing on imaging. With the rise of smartphones that can do snaps and films, its fortunes have declined in recent decades, so much so that last year it decided to go for a full transformation in order to re-establish itself as a consumer brand.

Cashing in on Millennials’ allegedly new-found nostalgia, Kodak has already done several collabs with fashion brands, which revolve around its Super 8 film camera. The camera was first developed in the 1960s and was favoured for decades by the skater community for shooting film.

SuperEight gose has 5.3 percent ABV and has been brewed with prickly pear, mango, boysenberry, blackberry, raspberry, elderberry, kiwi juice, a dash of quinoa and a touch of Hawaiian sea salt, release notes say. The beer will hit local shelves in April 2019.

As part of the rollout for the beer, Mr Calagione is planning to do a boat trip up the eastern coast of the US this summer and he will be documenting his travels on Super 8 film. Afterwards, his film will be developed in the beer and then turned into a short feature.

On Kodak.com you can download the instructions as to how to process Kodak’s TRI-X Reversal Film in SuperEight beer.