Hamate

THE LEGEND

In te reo Māori, hāmate means dead, killed, destroyed. It is not a euphemism. It does not soften what it names. The word carries the full weight of ending, the moment a life is taken and the world rearranges itself around the absence.

In Māori warrior tradition, the first enemy killed in battle held a significance that extended far beyond military victory. This first slain, the mataika, was a sacred event. The heart of the mataika was cut from the chest and offered to Tūmatauenga, the god of war and of humanity itself. Tū was the fiercest of the sons of Ranginui the sky father and Papatūānuku the earth mother. When his brothers hesitated to separate their parents and bring light into the world, Tū alone advocated for the act. When the other gods fled from the wrath of Tāwhirimātea, the storm god, Tū alone stood and fought. He is the ancestor of all human beings, and his dominion is conflict, courage, and the rituals that transform violence into something sacred.

The offering of the heart was not butchery. It was covenant. The warrior who took the first life carried an obligation to acknowledge that the power to kill came from Tū, and that power demanded reciprocity. The heart, placed upon the ahi tūāhu, the sacred fire, was the closing of a circle: life taken, life offered back, balance restored. Mana flowed to the warrior, to the war party, and to the iwi. Without the offering, the killing was merely destruction. With it, the act became part of the order that held the world together.

Hamate is a New Zealand IPA at 6.9% ABV, brewed with the hops of Aotearoa. Pineapple, guava, and wine grape pierce through in lethally aromatic waves, vivid as the first strike, unflinching as the hands that hold the offering. This is not a beer that looks away from what it names. The heart has been taken. The fire is lit. The god of war receives what is owed.