A Podcast & A Beer – Heaven’s Gate


So my wife and I are on a bit of a cult kick. We binge watched Wild, Wild Country about the Bhagwhan Shree Rajneesh and his fitful years in Central Oregon and we also blitzed through this multi-part series about the Heaven’s Gate cult.

The podcast host is Glenn Washington and he has a wonderful radio voice. Deep and expressive and he leads us through a weird, weird story of how a group of UFO fans and disconnected and discontented people ended up killing themselves in an effort to board a spaceship that was hiding in the Hale-Bopp comet.

Wherever you fall on the spectrum of brainwashing and whether the leaders then one leader really was lying to them or believed his mission, you will end up having conversations about it and why people felt the need to join in the first place.

To drink with it, the obvious choice would be the UFO series of beers from Harpoon Brewery. But if you can’t find that on-point suggestion then Heavenly Hefeweizen from Pasadena’s Craftsman Brewery would be appropriate. As a final suggestion, you could also go for any San Diego beer since the group spent their final days in a rented mansion in San Diego county.