Drekker Brewing and One of the Most Iconic ‘Always Sunny’ Episodes Ever!
Both ‘Sunny’ fans and barrel-aged beer lovers can appreciate these two special Drekker brews. Either way, it’s a great excuse to revisit the famous “The Nightmare Cometh” episode.
The Show: Comedy-Sitcom / 2005-present / FXX – 3 Arts Entertainment
The Beers: The Nightman Cometh Stout and variants / All 10% ABV / Drekker Brewing Co. – Fargo, ND
“The Nightman Cometh” is one of the most praised and quoted episodes ever of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which already has a crazy high bar.
For those who haven’t seen it, “The Nightman Cometh” opens with Charlie (Charlie Day) announcing he’s written a musical. It doesn’t take long for the rest of the gang to agree to play the parts he’s written for them (albeit with some last-minute switches), and the show is on! Much of the episode is the musical itself — complete with karate, an improvised song about not being a pedophile, and Danny DeVito as a troll asking for tolls.
The season 4 episode also serves as one of Sunny‘s first big pivots into an unusual format and premise, and it provides more insight into Charlie the bar janitor’s unfortunate past. Is “the Nightman” Charlie’s creepy uncle Jack? Is “the Troll” Charlie’s mom? It’s the exact type of stuff that shouldn’t be funny, but my god it’s hilarious. In other words, the whole episode is a perfect display of what Sunny does best.
It’s really worth a watch. So much so that I don’t want to spoil the rest of it here — I just implore you to cue up Season 4, Episode 13 and enjoy.
The team at North Dakota’s Drekker Brewing knows how awesome the episode is too. “The Nightman Cometh” is the name they gave one of their most acclaimed dark beers ever. Aged for a year in Booker’s Bourbon Barrels, the Russian imperial stout even nabbed a gold medal at the 2018 Best of Craft Beer Awards for its chocolatey undertones and full-bodied coffee complexity.
But fast forward a couple years, and Drekker released something even more spectacular. Actually, make that two somethings.
Meet Dayman: Fighter of the Nightman and Champion of the Sun, two variants of the original beer recipe built into pastry stouts. If you’ve heard “The Nightman Cometh’s” main theme, you know the names are lyric references.
Conditioned on “mounds of delicious toasted coconut,” and custom coffee (from a local joint in Fargo), Dayman: Fight of the Nightman is kind of like a boozy Almond Joy. Fitting, since booze-filled candy seems right up the Sunny gang’s alley.
Then there’s Champion of the Sun. For this variant, the Drekker crew conditioned a barrel of Nightman Cometh on macadamia nuts, roasted cacao nibs and more of that custom roasted coffee. The final result is like a macadamia mocha, which is pretty darn scrumptious.
Sadly though, it’s pretty tough to get a bottle of either variant these days. They’re all sold out at the brewery, so beer explorers are limited to whatever speciality bottle shops have been holding onto. But good news! Drekker releases a new batch of the original The Nightman Cometh Stout every winter. Wait a few months, and you could be sipping the stout while watching its namesake.
Even if you don’t get a bottle, just watch the episode already. Danny DeVito mispronouncing “boy’s soul” as “boy’s hole” is worth it.
