In the past year we’ve seen brewers incorporate everything from bulls’ testicles to goat brains into boundary-pushing beers. Now it looks like the high seas are the new frontier for pioneering beer makers.

Twice this week, NPR has profiled brewers making use of the ocean's flora and fauna for some truly far-out beers.

In Maine, Marshall Wharf Brewing Co. is getting ready to roll out Sea Belt Scotch Ale, a beer brewed with a type of seaweed harvested locally known as sugar kelp. It reportedly brings earthy and briny notes to the Scotch ale’s peat-smoked malt sweetness, and it’s earned ringing endorsement from Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione.

Meanwhile, down in Ashburn, VA, Lost Rhino Brewing Company has partnered with amateur fossil hunter Jason Osborne of the nonprofit Paleo Quest to produce Bone Dusters Paleo Ale. It’s a citrusy, Belgian-style amber ale that was fermented using a yeast strain scraped off of a 35-million-year-old whale fossil.

From inside a giant crab cage in full scuba gear, Osborne reportedly braved currents as strong as hurricane winds to retrieve the prehistoric whale bone from 30 feet below the surface of a Virginia swamp.

Today, fossilized whale bones. Tomorrow, who knows? How ‘bout a giant squid gose?

Photo: Marshall Wharf Brewing Co./Facebook