Welcome Back to Oz, Bitches! Is a Gluten-Free, Green-Glitter Beer Inspired By a Drag Performer’s Make-Up

In the hunt for recognition, crowded beer fests always reward the bold. But boldness can take many forms. For the SheBrew Beer Fest on March 3—dedicated both to LGBTQ causes and showcasing beers exclusively by female-identifying brewers—McMenamins distiller Lee Hedgmon made a one-off brew that beardy beer bros may never have conceived. Hedgmon's Welcome Back to Oz, Bitches! has a color few beers achieve except on St. Patrick's Day in the silly part of Irishtown. It's green, it's glittery, and though it's billed as a Belgian-inspired tripel, its only true style is its own. The high-ABV, gluten-free brew was made at Ground Breaker with exotic bases like sorghum and chestnut. Its emerald hue comes from an addition of blue curaçao to the blond base. The result is both alien and fun—surprisingly balanced and pleasantly estery, with rounded malt notes. The dangerously drinkable quaff is also guaranteed to be the only beer we've ever tasted inspired by a shade of makeup—the sparkle-paint and green hues worn by drag performer Todrick Hall in the defiant music video "Wrong Bitch." It isn't, however, the wrong beer.