Edmonton Sea Change Brewing is partnering with Yego.Death Beer

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What started as a joke can now be consumed as a cold.

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Edmonton’s Sea Change Brewing, purveyor of artful craft beers, has teamed up with hyper-local meme account Yego.Death to release a limited-edition beer that will appeal to beer lovers and millennials alike.

Sea Change partner and brand director Pete Nguyen says the brewery’s crew are big fans of Yego.Death, and it was a meme posted by the snarky Instagram account that got the ball rolling.

“We were watching (Yego.Death) just like everyone else for fun when it started, and then they yelled at us because of a meme: ‘Sea Change will make a beer about me.’ Back then, I think we had a bunch of collaborations that summer, so they kind of kicked us into high gear for that,” says Nguyen. “I think they just released it as a joke.”

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However, the idea intrigued the Sea Change team, and Nguyen sent the Instagram account a direct message with a suggestion that they collaborate over a beer.

Instagram page Yego.Death launched in June 2021 and her satirical posts about Edmonton became a hit, garnering nearly 24,000 followers. Its flurry of vaporwave aesthetics, combined with all-caps affirmations like “everyone loves my photos of the YEG skyline” and “I’m Edmonton’s most independent business owner,” quickly became the city’s most popular inside joke.

To match Yego.Death’s cheeky vibe, Sea Change decided to brew a small batch of summer beer and launch it in winter. Nguyen calls the Yego.Death collaboration “the craziest, weirdest beer” the brewery has ever brewed; a gose (similar to a sour but lighter one), with flavors of smoked pineapple and salted lime. At four percent alcohol by volume, Nguyen calls it a super light, easy-to-drink beer that tastes more like a margarita. “We wanted a smoky mezcal flavor and a little more depth than just a super lemony pineapple sour beer.”

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The beer will be available to the public beginning March 5 with a launch party at West Edmonton Mall’s World Waterpark.

“It’s all part of the absurdity,” says Nguyen, noting Yego. Death has made a number of memes about the West Edmonton Mall because “The Mall” is ingrained in the identity of every Edmontonian. “To let people ironically or unironically share something they remember from their childhood is just a beautiful nostalgic thing.”

Working with student associations from the University of Alberta, NAIT and Grant MacEwan University, Sea Change leased the water park for the exclusive launch of Yego.Death beer. Any beer left over after the event will be made available to customers at a later date. With all of Sea Change’s one-off beers, once it’s sold out, it’s gone forever.

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As for the burning question, Nguyen says there’s a “100 percent chance” that the mysterious meme maker (or makers) is behind Yego. Death will be at the launch party, but don’t ask him to point it out.

“When I reached out to them, they offered to tell us who they were, but I felt like the responsibility was way too heavy and I would spill the beans very quickly,” says Nguyen. “I think their anonymity is part of the excitement of what they do. And I think knowing who they are would completely kill the fun in a lot of ways. Not having a face allows everyone to connect with the content a lot more.”

Nguyen says after the brewery packed the beer last week, it reached out to the Yego.Death account to offer some cans for tasting, as well as tickets to the release party.

“They brought in bait. I don’t know who the bait was and we had a password that they would tell one of our servers no questions asked. We’ve gone really far (with the secrecy),” says Nguyen.

Tickets for Sea Change’s Yego.Death Collaboration Beer Release Party can be purchased at seachangebeer.com.

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