Shmaltz Brewing Co., makers of Genesis Ale: The Chosen Beer, has announced two new beers that should be available on or around June 1. Genesis 10:10, for Schmaltz Brewing’s 10th anniversary and Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A, in honor of Lenny Bruce, who died forty years ago this year.

From the press release:

GENESIS 10:10:

“Come my beloved, let us go to the fields. If the pomegranate trees are in flower, then I shall give you the gift of my Love.” -Song of Songs 7:12 Creation, 1996, C.E.: On the floor of a San Francisco Mission District loft, intimate friends squeeze luscious pomegranates by-hand for the first 100 cases of HE’BREW’s Genesis Ale.
Evolution, 2006: Shmaltz Brewing renews this sacred covenant, sacrificing over 10,000 pomegranates for our 10th Anniversary offering, Genesis 10:10.
Revelation, on-going: In Jewish tradition, pomegranates symbolize righteousness, with seeds said to number 613, the total commandments in Torah. In Deut. 8:8, pomegranates, barley and wheat prove the bounty of the Land of Milk and Honey. In Exod. 28:33, G-d orders them embroidered on the robe of the High Priest. Kings 7:42 describes them sculpted on Solomon’s Jerusalem Temple. The calyx atop the fruit inspired the original Jewish crown. One Persian hero of myth consumed a pomegranate and became invincible. Muhammad instructed: “Eat the pomegranate, for it purges the system of envy and hatred.” Newlywed Greeks eager for a family crush one under-heel for fertility. Buddha cured a child-devouring demoness of her evil habit by instructing her to eat a pomegranate. Whether for knowledge or temptation, for virtue or strength, for art or for love — Behold Genesis 10:10, the crowning glory to a decade of brewing …with chutzpah! To Life…L’Chaim!

Also from the press release:

Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A:

“Satire equals tragedy plus time.” – Lenny Bruce
Emmis, Shmuck! 40 years alive. 40 years dead. And shares of Lenny Bruce commodities are still long-term performers – solid! Sure there’s been books, posters, films, plays, a box set of course. But the big Four-O inspires innovation, something hip, modern – unorthodox – a taste that really swings….
Ladies and Gentlemen, Shmaltz Brewing Co. is proud to introduce Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A. Brewed with an obscene amount of malts and hops. Shocking flavors – far beyond contemporary community standards. We cooked up the straight dope for the growing minions of our nation’s Radical Beer junkies. Judges may not be able to define “Radical Beer,” but you’ll damn well know it when you taste it. Bruce died, officially declared a pauper by the State of California, personally broken and financially bankrupt simply for challenging America’s moral hypocrisies with words. The memorial playbill read: “Yes, we killed him. Because he picked on the wrong god.” -Directed by, the Courts, the Cops, the Church…and his own self-destructive super ego. Like Noah lying naked and loaded in his tent after the apocalyptic deluge: a witness, a patron saint, a father of what was to come. Sick, Dirty, Prophetic Lenny: a scapegoat, a martyr, a supreme inspiration. From Burlesque to Broadway, Carnegie Hall to the Courtroom, Long Island to Lima, Ohio to L.A., savor the provocative spirit of Lenny’s R.I.P.A, our HE’BREW monument to the richness, the bitterness and the sacred sweetness that is life…L’Chaim!