Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #25, June 18, 2015

Sweet Baby Jesus!  Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter combined with Buddy Christ and Catholicism creates what I call Sweet Baby Jesus WOW!  I am not trying to be blasphemous with this image.  I am merely attempting to make comment on current beer issues, and this beer has just been banned!  Due to customers complaining about its name, this beer has been pulled from a major grocery chain in Ohio.  I get it, it is breaking the third commandment: ”Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain.”  However, I believe in this usage that it is more of an exclamation than a curse.  The beer itself is an award-winning chocolate porter with peanut butter, winning 3rd place at the GABF.  I have tried this beer on several occasions, and I find it to be a good dessert beer, especially with ice cream.  A bit too sweet, and naturally flavored to be consumed on its own, but it would certainly make an excellent beer float.  Not a go-to beer for me, especially since it’s not distributed to Alaska, but it is very interesting nonetheless.  I hope you don’t take offense to my social commentary, I’m merely documenting popular culture.  I actually hope it will make you laugh, or at least smile for a second.  Cheers!

You can purchase this painting, or a limited-edition print at my Etsy shop.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #25 by Scott Clendaniel. June 18, 2015. Sweet Baby Jesus Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter by DuClaw Brewing Co. 11″x14″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #19, May 7, 2015

This week’s beer-themed painting is of my homebrewed Saison chillin’ in the snow on top of Flattop Mountain. After a vigorous hike to the summit we drank the beer while enjoying the view and then had a good time sliding down the snow on our way down. I chose to paint homebrew this week because May 7^th is the day that National Homebrew Day was announced before Congress in 1988. Last Saturday the Great Northern Brewers Club put on an event known as Brew-a-thon where home brewers of Anchorage showed up to brew together. It is a national event that kicks off with a nationwide toast at noon CDT, 9AM here in Anchorage! I teamed up with newly retired Rick Levinson to brew a California Common Beer (like Anchor Steam Beer) we are calling the Steamy Retirement. I have been home-brewing for ages and consistently putting out homebrews for ten years now, but I recently upgraded my system from a less than five-gallon setup, to a ten-plus-gallon, all-grain, two-kettle brewery. I enjoy every aspect of the brewing process, except for cleaning fermenters, which is the most boring, although extremely important part of the job. In brewing, cleanliness is next to godliness! I have filled every fermenter I own with beer from the new system. Cheers to Arctic Brewing Supply for having every piece of gear a home-brewer could ever need, and all the ingredients to make world-class beer! I hope your homebrew tastes fresher and more delicious than any commercial beer! If you brew with the GNBC, you are on your way!

The original oil painting sold.  You can purchase limited-edition prints, or order a custom painting at my Etsy shop.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #19 by Scott Clendaniel. May 7, 2015. Home-brew on Flattop Mountain. 11″x14″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #15, April 9, 2015

This week’s beer painting is of Sockeye Red India Pale Ale — a beer that Anchorage has grown to love since 1995 when it was first brewed for Humpy’s Alaskan Alehouse by Midnight Sun Brewing Co.  Mark Staples and Billy Opinsky teamed up 20 years ago to make a hop-forward red ale that is now classified as a Northwest style India Pale Ale.  I have been loving this beer since I discovered it over a decade ago.  Now available in cans, it is a lot easier to procure than buying it only at Humpy’s, like you used to have to in 1995.  “Determined and bitter, but amazingly balanced, Sockeye Red IPA is gnarly enough to take you hook, line and sinker.” – Midnight Sun Brewing Co.

Alaskans take salmon seriously, that is why Sockeye Red IPA is close to many Alaskans’ hearts.  It is a bold beer for bold people.  One of the things we bold Alaskans like to do is go fishing.  What do you do with a big fish harvest?  You can it!  This painting is a play on canning.  I placed the Sockeye Red IPA from an aluminum can into a canning Kerr jar.  If you go out fishing and catch 20 Sockeye Red salmon, you are going to have to throw one heck of a salmon bake, or invest in a second freezer, or dump everything you had, including the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream to make freezer space.  The other option is to can the fish.  Jars are the way to go if you want to be eating this year’s salmon until you can harvest again next year, or even five years later.  It’s shelf stable, baby!  Even the best freezer bags will go funky in about 9 months, so Alaskans are big fans of the glass mason jar.  These jars are also great beer-drinking glasses, as they are true pints!  Have you noticed that the pint glasses at some bars are getting smaller and smaller?  Last time I measured, my “pint” glass held a measly 13 oz to the top!  If you get a Sockeye Red in a pint jar without any foam, you know you are getting a full pint.

Cheers to the upcoming fishing season, and to good brews to keep us happy on the beach!

The original oil painting sold.  You can purchase limited-edition prints, or order a custom painting at my Etsy shop.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #15 by Scott Clendaniel. April 9, 2015. Sockeye Red IPA by Midnight Sun Brewing Co. 11″x14″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #13, March 26, 2015

This week’s beer painting for Thirsty Thursday is of Red Chair NWPA by Deschutes Brewing Company in Bend, Oregon. I neglected to include this great beer in last year’s Year of Beer Paintings series, because I painted many other great Deschutes beers, and was looking for more variety of breweries to increase the scope of the project. I chose to paint this beer this week because of the upcoming Merry Marmot Festival taking place this weekend at Arctic Valley – a ski area near Anchorage, Alaska. The festival marks the end of the ski season for this ski area, which is a bummer, because on a normal snow year we’d still have a couple weeks of great skiing left, but the lack of snow this year makes that impossible. Arctic Valley has two red chair lifts, which are Riblet brand, with the tailbone-smashing center pole. Hope your snow pants provide ample padding. Still, it’s the best option for getting to the top, the other one being a Poma t-bar. Although this beer is named for the red chair on Mt. Bachelor, I consider it to be a tribute to all red chairs out there. This North West Pale Ale has a nice hop aroma and flavor. Hardly a pale ale, full of Centennial and Cascade hops coming in with 60 IBUs, this beer is closer to an IPA. Overall, a great beer to enjoy ski après for its refreshing crisp flavor, and stunning complex malt body.

Cheers to downhill skiing, one of my favorite sports, and to Deschutes Brewing, one of my favorite NW breweries!

This painting sold. You can purchase a limited-edition print, or order a custom painting at my Etsy shop.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #13 by Scott Clendaniel. March 26th, 2015. Red Chair NWPA by Deschutes Brewing Co. 8″x10″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #12, March 19, 2015

This week’s Thirsty Thursday beer painting is of Modern Romance — a collaboration by Midnight Sun Brewing Company and Modern Dwellers Chocolate Lounge. Brewed with cacao nibs, cocoa powder, cinnamon, chilies and maca, this dark ale is a sexy brew indeed. Spicier than last year’s batch, it will bring on the heat and clear your sinuses. This is a great winter warmer, warming more that just your spirits. At 9.3%, and sold in 22 oz bottles, I recommend sharing this one with a friend. Not for someone who dislikes spice, but if you want a beer that will broaden your palette, this is the right bottle. This seasonal, and limited brew comes out right before Valentine’s Day each year.

Cheers to Modern Romance, a great collaborative product from two of my favorite Anchorage establishments!

This painting sold. You can purchase a limited-edition print, or order a custom painting at my Etsy shop.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #12 by Scott Clendaniel. March 19th, 2015. Modern Romance by Midnight Sun Brewing Co. 8″x10″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #11, March 10, 2015

This week’s beer-themed painting is of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew Ale by Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in Delaware!  This unique dark beer brewed with gesho and honey waited for the right moment in my beer cellar for several months.  I was saving it for a quiet evening when I could relax and listen to jazz while sipping on a special brew.  Like the jazz music, this beer was sensual and rhythmic, with just enough funk to make it striking.  I am a fan of what the brew team at Dogfish Head put together, and love the music themed beers.  I listened to this album for the first time 15 years ago while attending music history class at Western Oregon University.  My cool-cat professor was such a huge fan of Miles Davis, he would give away free Kind of Blue albums to people who had never heard the Miles Davis sound.  I drank the beer and painted this piece while listening to the Bitches Brew album.  The background is completely inspired by the Miles Davis sound.

Cheers to the Prince of Darkness, the original Miles Davis and to the brew crew at Dogfish Head, who was genius enough to pair beer with music!

You can purchase this painting, or a limited-edition print at my Etsy shop.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #11 by Scott Clendaniel. March 10th, 2015. Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew Ale by Dogfish Head Craft Brewery. 8″x10″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #10, March 5, 2015

This week I decided to make an abstract painting of a pint using the stylistic lines and forms that would be common in a Kandinsky painting. Wassily Kandinsky was born in Russia in 1866 and died in France at the ripe old age of 78. He studied law and economics at the University of Moscow, but is ultimately credited with the first completely non-objective, abstract modern art. Ironically, this beer painting is objective. Kandinsky started painting when he was 30, and studied art in Germany. He returned to Russia in 1914, when World War I broke out, but didn’t jive with Communist Moscow’s approach to art, and moved back to Germany in 1921. He taught at the Bauhaus, an avant-garde school of art and design, until the Nazis shut it down. So he moved to France in 1933 where he lived for the rest of his life, and produced his best paintings. This beer painting was inspired by composition VIII, painted in 1923 when Kandinsky was a professor at the Bauhaus. I call this painting Pint Composition. I find the paintings by Kandinsky to be both inspirational and beautiful, and I hope you enjoy my beer-themed version. I wonder if Kandinsky drank beer at the Hofbräuhaus when he lived in Munich.

The original oil painting sold.  You can purchase a limited-edition print, or commission a custom beer painting at my Etsy shop RealArtIsBetter.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #10 by Scott Clendaniel. March 5th, 2015. Pint Composition. 6″x12″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #9, February 26, 2015

When you have a fresh new pint of beer in front of you, and you look down at the foam, have you ever seen shapes resembling something?  Maybe if you were feeling extra artistic and had a moment that can only be described as the “aesthetic experience”.  I always get that feeling when I stare into a pint.  Like in a magic crystal ball, I see visions of the possible future, memories of past events, and sometimes inspiration strikes.  So, for this week’s Thirsty Thursday painting I painted a version of Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night as if I walked up to a pint and saw this sublime work of art in the foam.  The painting is composed as if the viewer is looking directly down into the pint.  Of course I have never hallucinated the Starry Night in a pint glass.  Instead, it is a metaphor for my muse.  I think this hyperbole appropriately states how important beer has been to me as an artist.  Everybody knows enough about Van Gogh, so I spare you the history lecture.  I recommend watching the Kirk Douglas movie Lust for Life, if you want to learn more about the famous artist.

Cheers to living life to its fullest!

The original painting sold. You can purchase limited-edition prints, or order a custom beer painting at my Etsy shop.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #9 by Scott Clendaniel. February 26th, 2015. Starry Pint. 11″x14″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #8, February 19, 2015

This week’s Thirsty Thursday painting veers from the pattern of famous paintings turned into beer-themed art, because I got a call on Tuesday morning from a reporter from Channel 11 News who wanted to do a story about my art. She asked if she could film in my studio, but because my studio is really small, I suggested filming at one of my favorite local breweries, Snow Goose Restaurant and Sleeping Lady Brewing Co., because I have several paintings hanging there, the beer is great, and on Wednesdays (and Fridays) growlers are only $5! I also do chalkboard art at this place, so I spend quite a bit of time there. I haven’t painted live in a brewery since November, and I missed doing it, so I suggested doing the interview while I paint a beer. I painted this pint of Urban Wilderness Pale Ale by Sleeping Lady Brewing Co. on the railing of the deck, because this pub has the best deck in town that is packed on sunny days in the summer. This beer is mostly true to its style, but is more hopped than standard pale ales.

I was flattered to be interviewed by Heather Hintze from KTVA. I always worry whether I sound intelligent when speaking about my beer paintings, but figure it will be better to say something about them than nothing at all. Hopefully Heather will edit out all the stupid things I may have said. Painting and talking in front of a camera at the same time is more challenging than you may think. If you live in Anchorage, tune in tonight at 6 PM to Channel 11 News to see my segment.

If you have not visited “The Goose”, I highly recommend it. Keep in mind that if you’re drinking your pint on the deck in high sunlight, move your beer into the shade, or cover it. Direct UV light can damage a beer in just a couple minutes, and will make it taste “skunky”. Thanks to Gary Klopfer, Greg Mills, Dion, Dave, and the rest of the fabulous crew at the Snow Goose Restaurant and Sleeping Lady Brewing! May the restaurant prosper and stay true to its beer-centric roots!

You can purchase this painting, or limited-edition prints at my Etsy shop.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #8 by Scott Clendaniel. February 19th, 2015. Urban Wilderness Pale Ale by Sleeping Lady Brewing Co. 8″x10″, oil on panel.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #7, February 12, 2015

The Scream, or as Edvard Munch (1863-1944) called it, Der Schrei Der Natur (The Scream of Nature) is one of the most famous paintings in history. Art critic Arthur Ludlow even describes it as “the Mona Lisa of modern art.” In 1893 Munch created four pieces of the same composition; one with pastels, and three in oil paint. The pastel version sold in 2012 for over $119 million. Ironically, Munch lived on a tiny stipend from his father for much of his early career, and was subjected to a large amount of negative criticism by art authorities, as well as his family members. Munch’s iconic masterpiece is the “study of the soul, that is to say the study of my own self,” as stated by Munch himself. It was painted to represent a day when the artist was out for a walk, and dropped back from his friends when he felt tired and ill. As the sun set, he says he leaned against the fence, and saw and felt the scream of nature, which he describes as tongues of fire and blood reaching over the black and bluish fjord.

Subject to bouts of anxiety and mental illness, Munch was institutionalized in 1908 for anxiety and hallucinations from his rough and tumble life for most of a whole year. Munch lived out his last two decades in Oslo on a self-sufficient estate, in relative comfort, having created a following for his artwork, and produced many paintings of nudes from a steady group of female models. When Munch was 76 he was worried about the Nazis confiscating his “degenerate art” and he hid his strongest pieces, including The Scream. When Munch died at 80, his paintings were bequeathed to the city of Oslo. In 1963 the Edvard Munch Museum opened with over 1,000 original paintings, 4,000 sketches, and 18,000 prints.

I painted this version of The Scream to show the anxiety one may feel because of an empty pint. I cannot take credit for this idea, as my friend, and fellow beer-enthusiast Rich Morgan came up with this concept. I thought it was brilliant when he told me about it, and I had to execute it. I call this painting The Scream over an Empty Pint.

The original painting sold.  You can purchase a limited-edition print, or order a custom beer painting at my Etsy shop.

Thirsty Thursday Beer Painting #7 by Scott Clendaniel. February 12th, 2015. The Scream over an Empty Pint. 11″x14″, oil on panel.