New Iron Hill beer named after Delaware rockers

Beer and bands go great together and you can soon get both in one.

Iron Hill Brewery is preparing to release a new beer later this week -- a brew named after '90s-loving Wilmington indie/alternative rockers Gozer.

Jaret Salvat-Rivera, lead brewer at Iron Hill's Ardmore, Pennsylvania, location, will ship the new sour wheat beer this week with an eye on it appearing at select locations by Friday.

When Salvat-Rivera pitched the idea of making Iron Hill's first-ever gose and got the thumbs up from his boss, his next job was to come up with a catchy name.

Salvat-Rivera, a musician who plays guitar with Philadelphia/Delaware-based upstart rockers The Bad Larrys, had music on his mind when he began to woodshed some possible names.

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How about Ringose Starr? Nah.

OK. What if it's named after "Milo Goes to College," the 1982 debut album by California punk rockers the Descendants? Milo Gose to College? Nope. No good.

That's when Wilmington-area resident Salvat-Rivera turned his attention to fellow local band Gozer.

The act is named after the shape-shifting deity in the original "Ghostbusters" movie -- the character who transforms into the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. And the name Gozer is pronounced exactly the same as gose, minus the "r" at the end. A perfect fit.

"It just made sense," says Salvat-Rivera, who started working for Iron Hill as a server/bartender at their Wilmington location more than four years ago before taking over as Ardmore's lead brewer in February 2016.

When he called Gozer frontman/songwriter/bassist Brian Bruce to see what he thought of the idea, Salvat-Rivera soon learned that his buddy will never be confused with a beer snob.

"He said, 'I only drink Miller Lite. [Screw] off," Salvat-Rivera remembers Bruce joking.

Bruce doesn't recall it going down quite like that, but he readily admits his beer of choice is cheap and light – not the sturdy craft beers that have exploded in popularity over the years.

In fact, Gozer's most recent EP, February's "Sick of Waking Up," includes the song "Lowlife" with the line, "My favorite type of guy/He don't drink craft brew/He drinks Miller Lite." 

Gozer is the first-ever Iron Hill gose for a simple reason: the style of beer was not very popular until recently.

These days, sour seems to be surging. Everyone from Milton's Dogfish Head with its gose-spiked SeaQuench Ale to Mispillion River Brewing's Vote 4 Pedro gose have gone sour in recent months.

The 4.2 percent ABV Gozer beer, made with pink Himalayan sea salt and coriander, is expected to land at Iron Hill's Wilmington, Ardmore and Media locations by the weekend, available on draft at the bar or in growlers for takeout. It may also appear at other locations, too. (Note: Iron Hill was in the news last week when the Newark-born chain announced it would open a Rehoboth Beach location next summer.) 

After agreeing to the Gozer beer, Bruce even drove to Ardmore on brew day to help create the unique set of suds. It was an opportunity he couldn't pass up.

"It's cool. We didn't really do anything for it, but Jaret really likes puns," says Bruce, also a bartender at Wilmington's Oddity Bar.

Gozer, which also features Jillian Willis (drums), Erin Silva (guitar) and Kyle Stawicki (guitar), will play its next show July 29 at Oddity Bar.

So will the Miller Lite-swigging Bruce ever try the sour Gozer beer – an acquired taste even for craft beer nerds?

He doesn't hesitate, even though he's not that type of guy: "Oh, hell yeah."

Contact Ryan Cormier of The News Journal at rcormier@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2863. Follow him on Facebook (@ryancormier), Twitter (@ryancormier) and Instagram (@ryancormier).