Holy Goat Brewing Finds a “Rainbow in the Dark”
There are beer names that happen to sound metal, and then there are beers whose heavy-metal intentions are almost impossible to misunderstand.
Dundee, Scotland’s Holy Goat Brewing has unveiled Rainbow in the Dark, a new 6.66% ABV release whose title points directly toward one of Ronnie James Dio’s most enduring songs. Holy Goat teased the beer publicly on August 29, 2026, pairing the unmistakable title with an equally unmistakable alcohol content: 6.66 percent.
For a brewery called Holy Goat, perhaps it was only a matter of time.
From Holy Diver to Holy Goat
“Rainbow in the Dark” originally appeared on Dio’s landmark 1983 debut album, Holy Diver. Written by Ronnie James Dio, guitarist Vivian Campbell, bassist Jimmy Bain and drummer Vinny Appice, the song became one of the defining tracks of Dio’s solo career. Released as a single in 1983, it reached No. 12 on Billboard’s Album Rock Tracks chart and was helped considerably by a memorable MTV-era video filmed around London.
The song remains inseparable from the Holy Diver era. Rhino describes Holy Diver as Dio’s platinum-selling debut and identifies both the title track and “Rainbow in the Dark” as songs that developed into rock signatures.
That history makes the Holy Goat pairing particularly satisfying. You have Holy Diver supplying the song and Holy Goat supplying the beer—a combination that feels almost too perfectly aligned to have been left unexplored.
Then there is that ABV.
At 6.66%, Holy Goat isn't exactly being subtle.
The number has been employed so often in metal imagery that it needs little explanation, particularly for anyone who owns a copy of Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast. Here it functions less like Satanic theology and more like the craft-beer equivalent of throwing the horns: a small numerical joke telling drinkers exactly what cultural territory the beer occupies before the cap is even opened.
The Strange World of Holy Goat
The Dio reference also fits unusually well with the brewery making it. Holy Goat is based in Dundee and specializes in mixed-fermentation and wood-aged beer, often working far outside the clean-fermentation conventions associated with everyday ales and lagers. Its house approach relies heavily on Brettanomyces and other microorganisms capable of producing layers of fruit, acidity and funk over extended maturation periods.
Even the brewery's name comes from fermentation.
According to Holy Goat, the “goat” refers to the sometimes goat-like characteristics historically associated with Brettanomyces, the wild yeast that plays such a large role in its brewing identity. Rather than trying to eliminate those strange aromas and flavors, Holy Goat effectively built an entire brewery around exploring them.
That philosophy comes from founders Johnny Horn and James Scanlan. Horn was a longtime homebrewer and archaeologist specializing in the British Iron Age before entering professional brewing. His résumé includes Edinburgh beer bar and brewery The Hanging Bat, Dundee's 71 Brewing and, most notably, helping co-found sour-beer specialist Vault City in 2018. Scanlan came from a creative-media background, including sound design, music and the games industry, and today handles much of Holy Goat's operations, branding and label illustration.
That combination helps explain why Holy Goat releases often feel as if a record collector, fantasy illustrator and microbiologist were locked in a brewery together.
Names such as Goat Wizard, Blood Witch, Doom Witch, Funk Weapon, Black Tusk, Shrinebuilder and Spectral Lore occupy a world much closer aesthetically to doom, black metal and underground album artwork than conventional pastoral brewing imagery.
And Scanlan's illustrated labels are an important part of that identity. Holy Goat credits him with the artwork for releases including Shrinebuilder 2025 and Black Tusk.
Spectral Lore Shrinebuilder 2025 Doom Witch Blood Witch Black Tusk
So while Rainbow in the Dark is a particularly overt musical reference, heavy music doesn't feel grafted onto Holy Goat's identity. It looks entirely at home there.
A Beer Name With History
There is an interesting wrinkle to the story.
Rainbow in the Dark is not a new name in British beer.
Bristol metal pub The Gryphon has long been associated with its own Dio-inspired beer of exactly the same name—and, remarkably, exactly the same 6.66% ABV.
That version was produced under Ashby's Ales, the brewing-project name associated with Gryphon proprietor John Ashby. Untappd's collaboration records describe the beer as a dark, rich stout brewed annually to commemorate Ronnie James Dio, with part of its proceeds going to charity. An earlier formulation was brewed with Arbor Ales; beginning around late 2019, production moved to New Bristol Brewery.
During the pandemic shutdown in 2020, Bristol coverage specifically listed The Gryphon's Rainbow in the Dark among the beers the heavy-metal pub was selling for local delivery, appropriately priced at £6.66 at the time.
Bristol’s The Gryphon has long occupied a special place where traditional pub culture and heavy metal overlap. Known for its real ale selection, dark interior and unapologetically metal identity, the pub has become a gathering point for fans of everything from classic heavy metal to doom, black metal and thrash.
The Gryphon, Bristol An upcoming show at The Gryphon Interior bar of The Gryphon
Somewhere, Just Under the Rainbow
More information about Holy Goat's Rainbow in the Dark should reveal exactly what sits beneath its metal exterior—its malt bill, fermentation method, maturation and whether there is a deeper story behind its connection to the earlier Gryphon beer.
But even before those details emerge, the release illustrates why Holy Goat is such an interesting brewery for metal drinkers.
Its relationship with darkness isn't simply branding.
Holy Goat takes microorganisms that conventional brewers once treated as spoilage organisms, embraces the strange flavors they create and gives them months—or sometimes years—to develop. It takes traditional European brewing methods and pushes them through a modern experimental brewery. Then it packages the resulting beer in imagery seemingly designed for someone whose record collection occupies more shelf space than their glassware.
And now that brewery has produced a 6.66% beer called Rainbow in the Dark.
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