Months after debuting their own line of whiskey, Metallica have teamed with Stone Brewing to announce their own beer brand, “Enter Night.” Described as “a hoppy pilsner played through a distortion pedal,” the beer first appeared on the band’s fall 2018 tour dates and will gain full U.S. distribution in the first quarter of 2019. A spring rollout will include Europe, Australia, China and elsewhere.
Metallica collaborated directly with the brewing team at Arrogant Consortia, an imprint of Stone Brewing, to craft the product – sampling the beverage at the company’s brewery in San Diego, California; at their own Bay Area headquarters and backstage at shows. Metallica’s Lars Ulrich and Stone co-founder Greg Koch also compared beer notes at the drummer’s home.
“The amount of ideals and outlooks that Metallica and Stone Brewing share are endless,” Ulrich said in a statement. “I’m always blown away about how similar our paths forward have been. Our view of the worlds that we each inhabit, of creativity and process, and sense of place in relation to our peers and ‘The Man’ are almost identical. This collaboration is beyond effortless and pure, and we can’t wait to share this incredible beverage with everyone out there.”
Koch praised the band for staying true to their creative vision. “I remember seeing Metallica on the cover of a magazine just after the ‘Black Album’ was released,” he said. “On the cover was a quote that resonated with me to this day: ‘Metallica didn’t go to number one, number one came to them.’ I loved what that meant. Do it your way and never compromise your art. If you’re great at what you do people will come. I view that simple quote as one of the founding philosophical elements of Stone Brewing.”
Metallica previously ventured into the booze market with their whiskey, “Blackened,” which they released in 2018 through their own Sweet Amber Distilling Co. The company developed its own patent-pending enhancement process to craft the product, using the low frequencies of the band’s music to vibrate the barrels and enhance the flavor.