Fried Fried Chicken Chicken

Veil Brewery in Richmond, Virginia made a beer that tastes like fried chicken. They didn’t use an extract or hint of spice—they fried the chicken and threw it in the kettle.

I keep reading that craft beer has lost itself, doesn’t know what it is anymore. Fair point if you think beer should taste like beer. But somewhere around beer number eight hundred, people stopped caring about that. The novelty became the thing. What can we dissolve? What will they drink?

Fried chicken beer is the natural endpoint. Not because it’s good, but because someone asked could we? and the answer was sure, why not? The whole industry’s turned into that—less about flavors that work with hops and malts, more about whatever makes for a story. I had a beer that tasted like fried chicken. That’s the entire transaction.

The name’s perfect. Fried Fried Chicken Chicken. Just repetition. No pretense, no angle. It’s the most honest thing about it.

I probably wouldn’t drink it. Concept’s way more interesting than the product. But there’s something about the no-bullshit approach that I respect.