Skull Splitter: Orkney Ale

Is there such a thing as an appropriate beer pairing for the musical shamans of the late 20th century, aka Caroliner Rainbow?! Walking out of the Berkeley Art Museum performance, One Woman was in search of a beer to match this crazy ensemble.

Variously described as noise, bluegrass, and costume rock, Caroliner is ridiculously loud, ridiculously fun, and pretty self-absorbed. (Fun, and relaxing, in many cases. I have a thing against noise music being perceived as always aggressive, violent, or radical. On the contrary, there is actually very little going on in noise music in terms of movement because the signal is at a constant state of near saturation. This means, if you perceive noise as a disruption of the ordinary, or of the message, nothing is actually being disrupted in noise. So, when some idiot asked me at the show what I thought of the music and I replied, it's nice, meaning it was sort of relaxing, he got offended because I was somehow diminishing his desire to hear noise music [as distinguished from noise] as only cathartic, violent and difficult, I was even more convinced that I need to write about noise in a noisy but simultaneously meaningless way that could, or may be tuned out...O, I digress)  Listening to distortion and feedback, emanating from a saturated fluorescent stage illuminated by a black light, the colors sound and the sounds illuminate. Caroliner drones on, gyrating and thrashing about so that you can sit there motionless and absorb it all. And it is loud. So loud, that you feel the vibrations on your clothes, on your skin, and in your skull.

Enter Skull Splitter, a strong ale from Orkney, Scotland. Skull Splitter and Caroliner share a desire to resonate through an epic, mythical past. The Orkney brewery itself is relatively new (est. 1988), but the island is home to some neolithic ruins dating back 5,500 years. And Skull Splitter is named after a real tenth-century viking, Thorfinn Einarsson (aka Skull Splitter), who was the 7th Viking Earl of Orkney. Skull Splitter has an amazing dark red amber hue that's very clear. At 8.5% ABV, it's a strong beer, which, in this case comes out most up front as pure sweetness: dark raisins, dried red cherries, toffee, and a splash of bourbon. One Woman has a bit of a tough time figuring out many red ales, but this one is definitely more exciting than its cousin, Newcastle. The blend of pale ale, crystal and chocolate malts creates a toasty, fresh-baked graham bread smell that's very pleasant. But in the spirit of adventure, and to balance out the sweetness, I'm going to be a little playful and suggest this as a desert beer. One Woman tried it with slow baked rice pudding from the Fanny Farmer Cookbook, but I'm imagining it might go well with an Irish soda bread, or other lightly sweetened quick bread with fruit and nuts. 

***BONUS TIME!***

Slow-Cooked Rice Pudding recipe adapted from the Fanny Farmer Cookbook:

Ingredients
2 cups milk
1.5 tablespoons rice
3 tablespoons sugar
1 small pat of butter 
optional – pinch of nutmeg

serves two


1. Heat oven to 300º
2. Butter a baking dish, and mix all the ingredients together. 
3. Stir 2-3 times the first hour of baking. 
4. Bake around 3 hours, until thickened but not solid. The rice should be a beautiful golden color, and the skin formed on top should be browned. Serve warm or cold, with whipped cream if you're really going for it.
5. This stuff keeps well in the fridge, so make a bunch and enjoy, with or without the beer!