Mastodon Unleashes Poisonous Weapons Hazy IPA with Crosstown Brewing
Updated: 7 days ago
The Memphis brewery’s new 7% Hazy IPA connects Mastodon’s latest album and tour with a beer built around peach, mango, massive haze—and a subtle tribute to Brent Hinds.
For Mastodon, beer collaborations are nothing new. But the band's latest release with Memphis' Crosstown Brewing comes with a particularly appropriate backstory.
On September 4, 2026, Crosstown Brewing released Poisonous Weapons, a 7% ABV Hazy IPA created in collaboration with Mastodon ahead of the Atlanta metal band's October 18 performance in Memphis. The beer takes its name from both a song on Mastodon's new album, Marrow Deep, and the band's current Poisonous Weapons Tour.
In other words, this isn't a brewery simply sticking a metal-looking label on an IPA. The project developed directly with Mastodon's camp, and the band's involvement even helped determine what kind of beer would ultimately end up in the glass.
From a Coincidence to an Actual Mastodon Beer
Oddly enough, Crosstown had already brewed a beer called Mastodon before ever working with Mastodon.
In 2022, the Memphis brewery released a Double IPA named for the mastodon skeleton housed at Memphis' Pink Palace Museum. The beer had no connection to the band, but according to Crosstown head brewer Shane Ramsey, customers repeatedly came into the taproom asking whether it did.
The brewery's answer was essentially: no—but they wished it did.
Four years later, that wish became considerably more real.
When Ramsey learned that Mastodon would play Memphis' new Satellite Music Hall on October 18, he contacted the band's management and proposed a collaboration. Rather than disappearing into an inbox, the message received a response.
The project eventually brought together Crosstown Brewing, Mastodon's management and Live Nation. Ramsey worked with Olivia Monarch of Pinnacle Entertainment and Live Nation regional marketing manager Jenna Giorgi as the beer developed.
Satellite Music Hall is especially relevant to the collaboration. The 1,300-capacity venue sits directly across from Crosstown Brewing, creating an unusually direct connection between brewery and concert hall. The Mastodon show is scheduled for October 18 with Deafheaven and Alcest supporting.
Mastodon Had One Important Request: Make It Hazy
Mastodon apparently didn't micromanage the recipe.
The band left most of those decisions to Ramsey, but it did make one specific request: Poisonous Weapons needed to be a Hazy IPA.
"Mastodon apparently are big Hazy IPA fans," Ramsey told Memphis Beer Blog.
From there, Crosstown set out to make something considerably more fruit-driven than brutal.
The 20-barrel batch uses a grain bill featuring substantial flaked wheat, rather than leaning as heavily on oats as many New England-style IPAs do. A New England yeast strain provides the fermentation foundation, while the hop bill combines Citra, El Dorado and Emerald Spire, along with concentrated Mosaic HyperBoost.
The intended result is what Ramsey described as a "tropical explosion."
Peach appears to be the dominant aromatic character, accompanied by mango. Ramsey compared the aroma specifically to peach-ring candy. Visually, the beer is pale and heavily opaque—by Ramsey's estimation, potentially the haziest beer Crosstown has ever made.
At 7% ABV, it also lands comfortably in full-strength IPA territory without becoming an oversized Double IPA.
Interestingly, hazy IPAs have not historically been Crosstown's primary specialty. Ramsey consulted brewer Teddy Pepper, formerly head brewer at Flyway Memphis and now with Offset Bier Co. in Utah, for feedback on his approach. Pepper and Ramsey had previously collaborated on Crosstown's The Witching Hour Hazy IPA in 2025.
Crosstown does currently produce Animal Frequency, a 5% Hazy IPA built around juicy citrus character and a softer mouthfeel, so Poisonous Weapons pushes the brewery further into that stylistic territory while raising both the alcohol and intensity.
A Beer Connected Directly to Marrow Deep
The beer arrives at an important point in Mastodon's history.
The band released its ninth studio album, Marrow Deep, on August 28, 2026. Poisonous Weapons appears as the record's second track. Mastodon describes the album as one dealing heavily with grief, resilience and the lasting effects people can have after they are gone.
The record follows an exceptionally turbulent period for the band, including the departure and subsequent death of founding guitarist Brent Hinds in 2025. Marrow Deep became Mastodon's first studio album recorded without him.
That history quietly makes its way onto the beer can.
Crosstown graphic designer Tom Martin adapted the artwork from Mastodon's Poisonous Weapons Tour poster for the beer label. The design includes the Memphis venue and October 18 concert date along with tour support acts Deafheaven and Alcest.
Look more closely, however, and there's a smaller detail: a guitar pick bearing Hinds' initials (see above) incorporated as a tribute to Mastodon's late co-founder.
It's an understated element, but one that prevents the collaboration from feeling like simple tour merchandise.
Mastodon Has Been Drinking in the Craft Beer World for Years
The partnership also continues one of metal's more established relationships between a major band and independent brewing.
Mastodon's involvement with craft beer stretches back well over a decade.
In 2015, Danish brewery Mikkeller worked with Mastodon drummer/vocalist Brann Dailor on Mastodon Mother Puncher, a farmhouse IPA incorporating Brettanomyces and passion fruit. The beer launched at WarPigs in Copenhagen with Mastodon in attendance.
Mastodon and Mikkeller later collaborated on Sultan's Curse, an imperial stout released in 2017.
Then in 2021, Atlanta-area Three Taverns Brewery partnered with Mastodon for Teardrinker, a double dry-hopped Hazy IPA named after the Hushed and Grim single.
That project went considerably beyond licensing the band's name. Dailor participated in brainstorming, recipe development, label discussions, brew day and release activities. Three Taverns built the 6.2% beer around Idaho 7, Mosaic, Citra, Enigma and Motueka hops, producing mango, pineapple and peach character.
There's an interesting continuity there.
Five years later, Mastodon has once again asked a brewery for a hazy IPA—and peach once again appears prominently in the flavor profile.
Whether that's coincidence or evidence that Mastodon's preferred beer profile is becoming as recognizable as one of Bill Kelliher's riffs is open to interpretation.
There Are Actually Two Poisonous Weapons Beers
Adding another twist, Crosstown's IPA isn't even the first Mastodon beer to carry the Poisonous Weapons name.
Ahead of the Marrow Deep release, Mastodon partnered with Georgia's Sceptre Brewing Arts on another beer called Poisonous Weapons. That version was a markedly different 4.5% dry-hopped lager, brewed for the album's record-release celebration.
Crosstown's Memphis version is therefore less a duplication than a regional reinterpretation.
One Poisonous Weapons is a relatively light dry-hopped lager associated with the album release. The other is a 7% saturated, fruit-forward Hazy IPA designed around the band's Memphis tour stop.
For beer collectors—and Mastodon fans—that distinction could make both worth hunting down.
Beer, Metal and a New Neighbor
There's another reason Poisonous Weapons could be important beyond Mastodon.
Crosstown opened in Memphis in 2018 after founders Will Goodwin and Clark Ortkiese built the brewery alongside the redevelopment of Crosstown Concourse. The brewery now distributes through Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas and has built much of its identity around its connection to the surrounding neighborhood.
Satellite Music Hall opening immediately across the street creates a new opportunity.
The venue is expected to host roughly 100 concerts annually, potentially depositing thousands of music fans within walking distance of Crosstown's taproom. Ramsey has already said he hopes the Mastodon project becomes the beginning of additional collaborations with musicians appearing at Satellite.
That could make Poisonous Weapons something of a pilot program.
Metal and craft beer collaborations work best when there's more involved than slapping familiar artwork onto a can. Geography, timing and actual participation matter.
Here, all three intersect.
Mastodon is touring behind a new album. The beer is named after one of its songs. The label is derived from the tour artwork. The band's preferences influenced the beer style. The brewery is directly across the street from the venue where Mastodon will perform. And the artwork contains a small memorial to one of the musicians who helped create the band in the first place.
That's substantially more connective tissue than the average celebrity beverage.
Where to Find Poisonous Weapons
Poisonous Weapons Hazy IPA debuted on draft at the Crosstown Brewing taproom at 1264 Concourse Avenue in Memphis on September 4.
Crosstown brewed an initial 20-barrel batch, with four-packs of 16-ounce cans planned for local grocery and liquor-store distribution later in September. Crosstown also plans to sell 16-ounce cans at Mastodon's October 18 show at Satellite Music Hall.
For anyone planning on seeing Mastodon, Deafheaven and Alcest in Memphis, that creates a particularly efficient itinerary: Crosstown Brewing before the show, followed by a walk across the street to Satellite.
And for Mastodon fans who have followed the band's long relationship with brewing—from Mother Puncher to Sultan's Curse, Teardrinker and now two very different interpretations of Poisonous Weapons—the latest release demonstrates that the connection between Mastodon and craft beer remains considerably more than a marketing afterthought.
This time, it just happens to be very, very hazy.
Crosstown Brewing Company
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