Would You Drink Beer Brewed From Roald Dahl’s Chair?

File this one under things you never expected to drink in your lifetime: beer brewed from a famous author’s furniture.

It’s rare for a food or drink item to sound both like it was plucked from some futuristic work of science fiction and like it was unearthed from the ancient cellar of a dusty old British pub. But a brew out of the United Kingdom manages just that. It also makes us want to break out the industrial-strength furniture polish.

Back in 2016, to mark what would have been Roald Dahl’s 100th birthday, East London’s 40FT Brewery and Taproom teamed up with the whimsical food wizards at Bompas and Parr.

For context, Dahl was the famously mischievous author behind classics like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, and The BFG.

With the blessing of the Dahl estate, they swabbed the legendary “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” author’s writing chair for what the creative studio so delicately referred to as “dirt, dust, microbes, and bacteria.” Or, if you want to be poetic about it, “disgustingly delicious detritus.”

Among that detritus? A bit of yeast—the essential building block of beer. From this oddball discovery, they brewed up a Polish Grätzer-style ale, christened Mr. Twit’s Odious Ale after Dahl’s famously grotesque characters in The Twits. And because just drinking the stuff wasn’t theatrical enough, the beer made its debut at Les Enfants Terribles’ immersive production Dinner at the Twits. Nothing like a side of chair microbes with your immersive theater.

So—what did it actually taste like? The Whisky Exchange described it as a simple oak-smoked wheat beer. In other words, not exactly a technicolor Wonka invention, but still quirky enough to earn a spot in beer lore.

As for finding a bottle today? You’re out of luck. It never hit supermarket shelves in the U.K., definitely not in the U.S., and it doesn’t even appear on the brewery’s site anymore. Online listings show it as out of stock, suggesting this strange little slice of brewing history has gone the way of golden tickets.

But whether or not you’d ever actually drink a pint brewed with “chair dust,” you’ve got to admit—it’s a story straight out of a Roald Dahl tale. Gross, a little magical, and just the right amount of mischief.