Editor's Note: While we’re aware of the allegations of abuse against Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon, we still consider the show itself to be a cultural icon, and one of our all-time favourites. This recipe is published in the spirit of our enduring love for Buffy, and Pellicle would like to make it clear from the outset that we stand against abuse in all of its forms.

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It’s difficult to overstate the cultural impact the TV series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer had on its release. For me a big part of that was it’s rejection of moral stories and the outdated conventions of the horror genre. Moral stories date back as far as language and are tales designed to change the behaviour of their audience. The fable of Icarus teaches us to listen to our elders; the parable of the good Samaritan teaches us to not be prejudiced; and the tale of Hansel and Gretel tells us to be wary of strangers. Anyone who has watched Scream will be aware of the morals imparted by horror movies, the rules to survive: You can never drink or do drugs, and you can never, ever have sex.

These rules apply more often to the characters portraying teen girls than they do boys, so in horror movies there have emerged two archetypal female characters: the scream queen and the final girl. The scream queen is usually blonde, conventionally attractive, sexually active, and will often be shown drinking or partying, she usually dies first. The final girl is conservatively dressed, bookish, teetotal and virginal: she will be the one to vanquish the killer and survive the movie.

The very first scene in Buffy sees a couple of teens breaking into Sunnydale High as somewhere to go and fool around: a stereotypical bad boy and his blonde haired paramour, the presumed scream queen. After hearing a noise the girl gets spooked and you expect the monster to jump from around the corner. Instead the girl reveals herself to be a vampire, and promptly kills the boy. We are shown from the beginning that this show isn’t following the rules.

““I’m here to say beer good! Beer brings me together with my friends and connects me with people across the world.””

The main protagonist, Buffy Summers, represents the scream queen archetype. She’s blonde, attractive, academically average and enjoys partying in local hangout The Bronze. In a normal horror film Buffy Summers would be dead within minutes. Instead Buffy is our hero: she can dress how she wants, muddle her way through school, party with her friends and still kill vampires, demons and whatever else the hellmouth might throw at her. It’s the ultimate middle finger to the genre’s misogynistic and moralistic tropes. And this is why the series had such impact among its fans, it wasn’t talking down to teens, it wasn’t preaching.

This is why the episode Beer Bad from season four is so jarring. Buffy has just started her first year at college, and sleeps with a boy called Parker, who then ghosts her. And so to drown her sorrows she goes to the college bar and drinks copiously of a fictional beer called Black Frost with some fraternity boys. Buffy and the boys then mysteriously regress into Neanderthals and rampage around campus with Buffy’s friends having to intervene. It’s revealed the bar owner, Jack, is behind the transformations having added a magic potion to the Black Frost, because he was annoyed at students being disrespectful to him.

The rules from Scream are now well in force against Buffy, she dared to have sex so is punished with a boy that spurns her, and because she dares to drink beer she is afflicted with a curse.

This off tone story is rated the worst episode by fans on website IMDB, achieving only a 5.8 rating versus the show's overall rating of 8.2. It received widespread criticism from reviewers at the time, the BBC describing it as “American Puritanism.” [Editor’s note: we would like to state for the record that the worst episode of Buffy is The Zeppo, or any episode featuring Riley Finn.]

It transpires that the episode was written in hopes of getting a grant being offered by the US Office of National Drug Control Policy, which was inciting TV shows to include an anti-drugs message. The story was considered too abstract to actually qualify for funds however, because it was deemed more concerned with “otherworldly nonsense.”

But there’s a more inherent question about the message: is the beer bad in Beer Bad? If we removed the “otherworldly nonsense” and simply had a bar owner spiking beer, is the beer bad? No. Jack the bar owner is bad! And worse still the episode ends without Jack receiving any kind of comeuppance.

So I’m here to say beer good! Beer brings me together with my friends and connects me with people across the world. Beer is that refreshing cold beverage on a warm Summer’s Day and that malty companion to a well cooked meal. Beer inspires me to tell you stories through homebrew. So I set about to create a homebrew recipe for Black Frost, so unfairly maligned in this episode.

***

What do we know about Black Frost from the episode? It’s pump clip includes the tagline “good and strong” and Jack describes it derisively as a “fruity little microbrew,” Buffy’s stuporous tasting note of “Foamy!” adds another piece to the puzzle. We also see it on screen as a straw coloured, clear pale ale.

A fruity, strong, pale ale served in California? It’s got to be a West Coast IPA! We go a little bit off style with the grain bill: chit malt, wheat malt and carafoam all in there for maximum “Foamy!” Cascade and Chinook provide a citrus and pine combo that is classic for the style and both hops were available in 1999 when the episode first aired.

The final ingredient needed is an ominous green liquid decanted into the keg, the potion Jack adds to hex the students. I went with kiwi syrup to make it even more fruity. Black Frost does exist in an unadulterated form, so you can exclude it if you want a more traditional IPA.

I hope you enjoy trying this recipe, and if you do make sure you drop Pellicle a line to let us know!

Recipe

Target Original Gravity (OG) — 1.063
Target Final Gravity (FG) — 1.014
Target Alcohol by Volume (ABV) — 6.5%
Target International Bittering Units (IBU) — 70
Batch Size — 20 Litres

Ingredients

3.5Kg Chit Malt [Editor’s Note: Chit malt should generally only be used at 10-15% of the total grist. An alternative recipe would be to use 3kg of Pale Malt and 0.5kg of Chit Malt for a less troublesome brew day.]
1.5Kg Wheat Malt
500g Carafoam

40g Chinook (added first wort/start of boil)
30g Chinook at five minutes from end of boil
30g Cascade at five minutes from end of boil
30g Chinook at flameout/end of boil
30g Cascade at flameout/end of boil

White Labs California Ale Yeast (WLP001)

1 70cl bottle of Monin Kiwi Syrup (optional)

33.3L water total (14.3L for mash, 19L for sparge)

Method

Mash Duration — 1 Hour
Mash Liquor Volume — 14.3L
Total Grist Weight — 5.5Kg
Liquor to Grist Ratio — 2.6 L/Kg
Mash Temperature — 65ºC
Sparge Liquor Volume — 19 litres
Sparge Liquor Temperature — 80ºC
Boil Duration — 1 Hour
Fermentation Temp — 18ºC

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