Brewtal Truth

Amon Amarth (A)beer, Decibel #80, June 2011

2011-05-31T11:28:00.000-07:00

We recently got word from one of the most metal brewers in the U.S., Barnaby Struve of Three Floyds, that he and the 3Fs crew were going to be collaborating with Amon Amarth on a new beer. So, of course, we used that as an excuse to talk brewskis with Amon Amarth vocalist Johan Hegg.

You’ve obviously grown up with European beer, but what do you think of American craft-brewed beer?
JOHAN HEGG: Personally I think that some of the most interesting and best beer in the world comes from the United States, and it’s almost exclusively microbrewery stuff.

Are there specific beers in the U.S. that you look forward to drinking when you’re on tour?
HEGG: Most definitely so. Beer such as Fat Tire, Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout, Old Viscosity, the list could go on. It’s actually quite easy to get a hold of a lot of these beers in Sweden, maybe easier than in the US even, as some of these beers are not sold nationwide. That makes it difficult [for us] to be specific on a tour rider [in America], but that’s still pretty cool ’cause we usually ask for local microbrewery stuff. Sometimes you get to try some really good stuff that you didn’t know about before.

Are there European beers that you can’t get over in North America that you miss when on tour?
HEGG: I wouldn’t say I miss them, ‘cause, as I said, there are some really good beers in the U.S., but I do have some Scandinavian microbrewery favorites, like Orebro Bitter, Kaggen Stormaktsporter, Bedaro Bitter, Jarntorgets Arbetarporter and St Erik’s Pilsner. Apart from that, I quite like common beers such as Guinness, Staropramen, Fuller’s ESB.

We hear that you’re brewing up an Amon Amarth beer with Three Floyds. How did that come about?
HEGG: They contacted us to make an Amon Amarth beer, and since I knew about Three Floyds from before, and I know it’s a very, very good brewery, we pretty much jumped on the chance to create a pretty unique beer.

What kind of beer will it be?
HEGG: Well, Three Floyds are well known for their “extreme” beers, so we felt we wanted to do something pretty extreme and different that also relates to the new album, Surtur Rising, and our Viking theme. So, together with the guys at Three Floyds we decided to do a Imperial Smoked Honey Porter. I have never really come across any beer like that before, so I’m very curious as to how it will turn out. I’m personally a big fan of porter and stout, so I think this was a great idea.

What’s your favorite country to tour in as far as beer-drinking goes?
HEGG: Wow, that’s a tough one. In the U.S. you can get so much cool stuff if you go to the right places, but then again Ireland, Britain, Germany, Belgium and Czech Republic are some countries with great beer traditions. And going to a proper pub in Ireland or England is hard to top.

Favorite styles of beer?
HEGG: I like almost all beers, but it depends on the mood I’m in. Usually I prefer to drink stouts, porters or bitter ales, but on a hot summer day nothing really beats an ice-cold Czech style pilsner.

Adem Tepedelen suggests Amon Amarth use beermapping.com when planning their next U.S. tour.

There's More Than One Kind of Oktoberfest, Decibel #79, May 2011

2011-04-12T12:03:00.000-07:00

It'll no doubt pain our esteemed editor-in-chief to read this, but one of the best beer moments we experienced in 2010 was the night a a free-swinging pipsqueak of an outfielder named Cody Ross took Roy Halladay yard not once, but twice and set the tone for the ensuing NLCS, and the Philadelphia Phillies' ultimate demise in the playoffs.

But let's be clear, what made our favorite beer-drinking evening so great wasn't that the Phillies lost to the San Francisco Giants 4-3 in Game 1 of the NLCS. That was just the backdrop to the evening we spent at the famed Toronado Pub in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury District.

As we write this, the Toronado is wrapping up its annual Barleywine Festival, which is held every year during San Francisco Beer Week. Well into its second decade, the barleywine fest has helped put Toronado on the beer map. Every year 50-plus barleywines from across the U.S. vie for supremacy, and visitors come from around the world to get a taste of the incredible variety of high-octane brews on tap. It's all the more impressive that the Toronado hosts the event when you consider that this rather modest tavern (it's a dive bar, if we're being totally honest) features a "cozy" interior dominated by a well-worn bar crowded with dozens of taps.

Not surprisingly, it was filled to capacity when we made our way there from SFO, during a four-plus-hour layover, specifically to drink some beer at the famed Toronado. But the crowd on that pleasant October evening weren't just there for the brews; they came to watch the Giants on TV and drink great beer. The fact that over the course of a few pints we saw Tim Lincecum and his Giants teammates dominate a team led by (soon-to-be) Cy Young winner Halladay made for an electric experience to say the least.

The beer kicked ass, too. Since it was October, we limited our choices to fresh-hopped brewskis, and, man, did we hit the jackpot. While we can't remember the the specific names of any of them (sorry), the offerings from both local notables Russian River and Moonlight were everything we were hop(p)ing for, exploding with vibrant, fruity/cannabis aromas, but well balanced on the palate with soft malts and bracing bitterness.

And then we got hungry. Though Toronado doesn't sell food, you can bring in whatever you want, and they just happen to be next to Rosamunde Sausage Grill, a little hole in the wall that cooks your tube steak to order. We got a bratwurst piled with kraut, grilled onions and yellow mustard, and went back to the bar to resume our drinking/baseball watching. Leaving to catch a plane was tough, but we departed happy (=drunk) and well-fed, with the Giants in the middle of soundly trouncing the Phillies and an ecstatic buzz emanating through the bar.

We can't recommend the Toronado highly enough, but we must also warn readers thinking to visit of a couple things before they go. First, it's cash-only. The beer is cheap, though, so you won't need to bring much. Second, the bartenders will treat you well if you do the same. Know what you want to order, be polite and you'll get great service. Act like a douche and you'll get what you deserve.

The last thing is, try beers you never heard of before. Because of its rep, Toronado gets stuff you likely won't see everywhere (and did we mention that their jukebox totally rules?). Take advantage of that fact and maybe your own shining beer moment of 2011 will happen in that very same spot.

Please feel free to invite Adem Tepedelen to your favorite local beer-drinking establishment: BrewtalTruth at shaw dot ca.

An Open Letter to BC Craft Brewers

2011-04-05T09:05:00.000-07:00

Please stop being timid and apologetic. Please stop brewing “crossover” beers. Please stop trying to engage a portion of the beer-drinking population that will never drink your beers. Please take more chances. Please make the beers that you want to brew. Please focus on quality and creativity.

BC craft brewers, you have been needlessly kowtowing to the masses for far too long. There have been brewpubs and craft breweries in the province for nearly 30 years now, and it’s just recently that full-flavoured styles such as India Pale Ale have become relatively common. In your efforts to please everyone and “convert” Lucky drinkers to craft beer with featureless, unobtrusive ales and equally unremarkable lagers, you have missed the opportunity to convince the roughly 10 percent of the population who are truly receptive to craft beer that you have something remarkable to offer.

When Sierra Nevada founders Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi brewed and released their now legendary Pale Ale in 1980, nobody in the U.S. was clamouring for a well-hopped pale ale. Bitterness in beer was considered a bad thing by most Americans. But by having faith in the quality of their product, they started converting people one drinker at a time. They didn’t start out making a "cream ale" or a "lightly hopped amber" so as not to discourage Bud drinkers. They put out a well-made flavourful beer and let the people who were receptive to it hop aboard. And if Miller Lite drinkers didn’t like it, well, Grossman and Camusi weren’t going to change their minds anyway.

The craft beer movement in the U.S. was founded on the idea of creativity—taking traditional European styles and reinterpreting them. U.S. brewers (and craft brewers around the world) continue to try new things and blur the lines between traditional styles. The possibilities are endless! New categories of beer are literally created annually for judging at the Great American Beer Festival.

BC craft brewers, you need to lead, not follow. Introduce people to new styles and bold flavours. Stand behind them and be proud of them. It’s even more vital that you do this now as U.S. craft beer continues to cross the border in greater and greater quantities. U.S. craft beer exports were up 28 percent in 2010 and Canada was one of the top three markets (along with Sweden and the UK) for that beer.

As a result, BC’s craft-beer drinkers are more sophisticated than ever, so don’t be afraid to challenge them. Ignore the segment of the population that wants its mass-produced pale lagers. They are not your market and most never will be. Focus on, and please, the eager consumers who want to expand their palates and constantly try new stuff. Those are your people. They are bloggers, writers, CAMRA members, festival organizers and outspoken advocates for something they love. Take care of them and you’ll ultimately be rewarded.

The Good Guys

2011-04-01T09:55:00.001-07:00

We're going to somewhat veer off the usual theme here to simply acknowledge a couple of companies that really went out of their way to make sure that a customer—that would be yours truly—was satisfied.

To make a long story short, we bought on two different occasions a Brouwerij Van Steenberge Belgian Sampler 6-pack from a local liquor store. In both cases the Gulden Draak included in the sampler was completely flat. They were from the same batch. Since we had consumed all the other beers in the sampler, we didn't think it was reasonable to return it to the store where we purchased it. Instead we tried contacting the local sales rep for the brand's importer, Bravo Beer Co. We got no response, so we thought we should at least let Brouwerij Van Steenberge know about the quality control issue.

We heard back from the brewery almost immediately. They apologized and graciously offered to send us replacement bottles and glasses. We said, "sure!" not knowing the bureaucracy we would face clearing it through Canadian customs. Suffice it to say that the beer remains in customs' hands and will ultimately be destroyed by them, because the price for clearing it would have been close to $90. What a waste.

We then tried contacting Bravo (who, BTW, import a great selection of Belgian and UK beers) again, but this time we sent our email to the main office and heard back immediately. And, like Brouwerij Van Steenberge, they were very apologetic about the whole situation and very much wanted to make good. They offered to reimburse us for the cost of the two 6-packs and also send us some Brouwerij Van Steenberge glasses. Sure enough, a week later it all showed up.

So, we just want to acknowledge both Bravo and Brouwerij Van Steenberge. We encourage you to support both. The craft beer industry is mostly a tight-knit one full of good folk, but it's still heartening to have both of these companies really make an effort to please their customers. Thanks again!

1187 The Number of the Yeast, Decibel 78, April 2011

2011-03-30T19:34:00.000-07:00

Even the most clueless, indifferent beer drinker can probably recite the four basic ingredients it takes to make beer: barley, hops, water and yeast. We’ve heard it enough times in the various beer commercials that it’s common knowledge whether you give a shit about good beer or not.

Once you get down to the finer details, there’s all kinds of stuff to be learned about barley and hops—from the numerous varieties of hops and their different flavor and aroma profiles to the degree of roasting of the malt and the flavors and colors that produces. As for water, it has a definite influence on a beer’s flavor, but it can be massively manipulated to basically eliminate “local flavor.”

And then there’s yeast. For whatever reason, it ain’t cool to talk about yeast, but it’s really what turns grain, vegetal matter and water into intoxicating beery deliciousness. Without yeast, we can assure you that you would not give a crap about a beverage made with barley, hops and water. Because without yeast, that beverage would maybe taste OK (if not a little sweet and flat) but it sure as shit wouldn’t get you loaded. Yeast, a sugar-loving fungus, makes that magic happen, as it turns those sugars into ethanol (alcohol) and carbon dioxide.

But yeast doesn’t just do the work to create an alcoholic beverage, it can add specific flavors to a beer. And here’s where we get into the finer details. There are, for instance, two major strains of brewing yeast (which is technically a fungus): Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a top-fermenting yeast used in ales, and Saccharomyces carlsbergensis, a bottom-fermenting yeast used to make lagers (and the many related styles).

But even within these two strains, there are literally hundreds of different varieties capable of producing slightly different flavor profiles. In fact, it’s not uncommon for breweries to develop proprietary house yeasts that always give them the flavor they want. That distinctive Budweiser flavor ain’t the “beech wood aging,” it’s their own special yeast strain. Use those same ingredients, same beech wood aging, etc. with a different yeast, and it wouldn’t taste like Bud.

That’s why companies like White Labs in San Diego and Wyeast Laboratories in Oregon have numbers for their various strains, each producing the characteristics a brewer may be looking for to make a specific style. There’s even territory to explore beyond lager and ale yeasts.

Though they are now considered “bad bugs” for most standard brews (you’ll see why in a minute), wild yeast strains of the Brettanomyces genus were important in transforming wort (the malt, water, hops mixture) into beer long before the microbiology of fermentation was understood. If vats of the sweet liquid were left open to the air, these wild yeasts would turn it into an intoxicating beverage.

However, Brettanomyces or “brett” produces some sourness and other funkier flavors (from “barnyard” to spicy cloves) that on their own can be a little off-putting. Many brewers today, however, utilize brett along with standard brewing yeasts to create the really interesting, complex flavor profiles we generally associate with Belgian beers.

So, as much as hops and malt (with the various different degrees of roasting) can affect the taste of a beer, don’t discount the effect of the yeast, especially if a beer has been bottle-conditioned (a dose of yeast added just before it’s capped to add carbonation and flavor), in giving your favorite brew that certain flavor that others don’t seem to have.

Adem Tepedelen enjoys drinking the silty, yeasty backwash in the bottom of a bottle-conditioned beer.

Love That Lager, Decibel 77, March 2011

2011-03-30T06:14:00.000-07:00

There’s nothing worse than an elitist beer geek. The kind of guy (yeah, it’s almost always a dude) who is sure that his taste in ridiculously expensive, fussed over brews is far superior to whatever it is you’re into. We, on the other hand, realize that not everyone has the same palate/taste when it comes liquid refreshment and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. We may not share your enjoyment for, say, a frosty Busch Light, but that doesn’t mean we don’t get why you like it.

In fact, the majority of beer drinkers in the US (and probably worldwide) are simply looking for an experience that doesn’t go much beyond wanting to catch a buzz from a refreshing, easy-drinking barley pop. Thus the proliferation of pale lagers. Even in countries like Germany, England and Belgium, where some of the iconic brews of the world originated, most people reach for a pale lager of some description.

But here’s the thing, this style doesn’t have to be lacking in character and interesting flavor, as many of the more popular American versions are. A well-made pale lager can be a sublime thing in the right hands. We rounded up some top American brewers to give us the lowdown on a beer style that has perhaps been unfairly maligned.

Is it any harder to make a good flavorful pale lager than, say, a pale ale?

BARNABY STRUVE (Three Floyds): Making a technically “clean” pale lager takes the same sound brewing techniques it takes to make a pale ale. Where the difference comes in is that lagers have a much more subtle, crisp and less fruity flavor profile than most pale ales so any off flavors will come screaming through.

TONY MAGEE (Lagunitas): Do bears go to mass on Sunday? Does the Pope defecate rurally? Uh, yes. Waaaaayy yes!

What, in your estimation, are the hallmarks of a quality pale lager?

MAGEE: The palest of color, extra clean palate, a firm hop spine, a soft and malty thorax, and crisp finish. Oh, and it's easy to slam 'em down, too.

GARRETT OLIVER (Brooklyn): [It] should be very direct and clean, without lots of extraneous fruit or spicy flavors unless these are derived from hops. Lagers can certainly be very hoppy, and Brooklyn Lager is dry-hopped.

Is it hard to sell pale lagers to craft beer drinkers?

OLIVER: I think it's only now that consumers—especially craft beer enthusiasts—have become more sophisticated that people won't reject a helles or pilsner out of hand. That said, you still hear some craft brewers speaking derisively about “yellow beer.” Well, some of my favorite beers are yellow, but they're not boring.

TODD HAUG (Surly): We brew a helles called Surly Hell—all malt, 4.7% ABV, unfiltered—and we cannot make enough. True beer drinkers respect a well-made lager.

What are some of your favorite pale American lagers (micro or macro) and why?

STRUVE: Surly Hell is the beer to go for. It's an amazingly tasty beer that is an accurate reflection of the traditional helles style, and it’s named Hell.

HAUG: Full Sail Session Black [Lager]—loads of flavor in a low-ABV clean lager, and it's black. And, of course, Surly Hell.

OLIVER: I like Victory's Prima Pils; it's very individualistic, but still manages to express itself as somewhat old-school. Like our Brooklyn Pilsner, it's notably hoppier than most German pilsners these days. I've had some nice pints of Sierra Nevada's Glissade. On the lighter side, but still pleasant, I like Full Sail's Session Lager.

MAGEE: Mine, Lagunitas Pils. Why? Because we make it, of course. The very best next-in-line is Victory Prima Pils, but that is only because we don’t make it!

Adem Tepedelen drinks your milkshake, or your beer, or whatever else he can get his hands on.

A Double IPA By Any Other Name, Decibel 76, Feb. 2011

2011-03-29T11:42:00.000-07:00

One of my own personal beer-related fantasies involves being a judge in a beer competition. Something like the one held at the annual Great American Beer Festival (GABF) in Denver every fall, where hundreds of breweries compete in 79 different stylistic categories. Yes, that number is correct: 79. See if you can name 20 different styles, smart guy. We would be hard pressed to do the same.

Sure, there’s a fair amount of hair-splitting involved in the competition—hell, IPAs are dispersed into three categories: English style, American style and Imperial—but there are also new categories added practically annually. Which brings us to the real point: are the ever-increasing number of beer style names starting to lose meaning to the average consumer, much in the same way that metal has been sliced and diced into ridiculously obscure and fairly pointless subgenres?

We touched on this subject a bit in a previous column in regards to Cascadian Dark Ale (aka Black IPA, India Brown Ale, etc.), but with all the crazy style-mashing and experimentation, brewers are coming up with beers that just defy any sort of useful description. A few years ago, Lagunitas did a series of tribute brews to Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention’s first few albums and this is, verbatim, how owner Tony Magee described two of them to us in an interview: “a showcase for Amarillo hops on a wheaty base” and “an imperial brown thing.” Obviously the GABF doesn’t (yet?) have categories for those two admittedly experimental brews, but it does speak to the nature of brewing nomenclature, which is becoming less and less useful.

Imagine (insert big independent metal label name here) putting out a new record by a band and promoting it as, I dunno, “Scandinavian death ‘n’ roll,” or some such random nonsense. So, you buy it, listen to it and think, “this sounds more like melodic blackened death thrash to me.” Now, it’d probably be a little too facile to say it’s all just goddamn heavy metal and should simply be labeled as such, because clearly there are some significant style differences between Agoraphobic Nosebleed and Holy Grail. It’s the same with beer. There are obviously significant style differences between IPAs and brown ales, so just calling everything “ale” is insufficient. What’s confusing things in the beer world, however, is the labeling.

Fellow Decibel contributor Etan Rosenbloom sent us two beers—Avery’s Maharaja Imperial IPA and Port Brewing’s Hop-15 Double IPA—that, had you poured them for us blind, we would have sworn were West Coast-style barleywines. Both had alcohol levels right around 10% ABV and both were on the sweeter side and mega-hopped. One brewery called theirs a “Double IPA,” the other an “Imperial IPA.” We called them both barleywines.

Who’s right? Does it matter? We think it does. We’re not going to suggest that some governing body dictate what beer labels say, but it’d be cool if brewers either made an effort to adhere to the Brewers Association guidelines for their more conventional beers and just did the Tony Magee thing—“a showcase for Amarillo hops on a wheaty base”—for any of their more experimental ones.

Adem Tepedelen realizes that beer cannot be sent via email, but solicitations to mail him beer can be: BrewtalTruth at shaw dot ca.

Bitter By You, Bitter Than Me: Decibel 75, January 2011

2011-02-22T21:27:00.000-08:00

The makers of Keystone Light (which would be, in fact, Coors) definitely did not have craft beer drinkers in mind when they trotted out their ridiculous “bitter beer face” commercials back in the ’90s (Youtube that shit, you won’t be sorry). The basic idea was that people don’t want bitter beer. And therein lies the ridiculousness, because without the bitter bite of hops, beer would just be, well, sweet and malty. And maybe there’s a market for that in Germany, where hops use is generally pretty restrained in the heavier beers, but any well-balanced beer should have at least some bitterness to it.

We’re writing this just as many of the wet-hopped beers—or harvest ales, as they are sometimes called—are hitting the market, so we’ll admit that the gloriously pungent stench of hops has been top of mind of late. For those not in the know, wet-hopped beers are brews made with freshly picked, undried hop flowers that are massively aromatic, in addition to being bitter. It is, quite simply, hop heaven. Except if you’re Muni Waste drummer, Dave Witte, who, in this very column admitted he, “doesn’t like hoppy beers.”

To each his own. Truth be told, bitterness is an acquired taste. And there has been a growing trend to pump up the bitterness in craft beers due to the rising popularity of IPAs, double IPAs and the like. Hell, there are some barley wines (a high alcohol beer invented by the British) that have ridiculous amounts of hops in them used to balance the ridiculous sweetness. But balance is the key word here. Heavy-handed hop use can be awesome when done correctly. It can make a beer that both smells amazing (sometimes like really sticky, stinky resinous bud) and tastes delicious (with citrus, pine and even tropical fruit notes). However, hops needs sweet, sweet malt to keep it in check. Drinking an overly aggressively hopped beer is kind of like listening to a low-fi black metal album super-loud with the treble turned up to 11. Painful and fucking unpleasant.

But, if you find that you like the taste of hops, once you travel down that road seeking ever hoppier beers, you’ll want to keep going further and further. And you will certainly find no shortage of brews that will offer you new challenges. Bitterness in beers is measured in International Bitterness Units (IBUs). Most standard IPAs have between 50-70 IBUs. For sensitive types, such as Mr. Witte, that’s just too much bitter. (Belgians and stouts, some of his faves, are typically in the 20-30 IBU range.)

However, for serious hopheads, that’s like Kool-Aid. There are beers out there that boast 100-plus IBUs and lemme tell you, that is a whole lotta bitter, friends. Trust us. Rogue’s Old Crustacean Barley Wine is one of those beasts and it’ll leave you with a throat-coating wash of alpha-acid acridness that’s well, really fucking bitter and lingers for a long time. We’re pretty sure that kind of beer was not what the marketing geniuses at Keystone Light (which probably would have somewhere close to 5 IBUs) were targeting, but if ever a craft beer would give a person bitter beer face, anything over the century mark is certainly a good candidate. Proceed with caution.

Adem Tepedelen once chewed on a fresh-picked hop flower and found it to be unpleasantly bitter.

Ninkasi Brewing: Reigning Beer, Decibel 74, Dec. 2010

2011-02-03T09:43:00.000-08:00

As detailed previously, we have a soft spot for Eugene, Oregon, if for no other reason than it was where we first tasted good beer. The hippies we can do without. But despite its reputation as laid-back college town where the flotsam and jetsam of the itinerant Phish-following crowd periodically washes up, there has always been a staunch extreme music underground (see: YOB). And, yeah, the beer is still really good. Ninkasi Brewing, around since 2006, represents the best of both worlds in Eugene. Great beer made by dudes who love heavy music. Owner/founding brewer Jamie Floyd gave us the lowdown.

Based on some of your beer names and labels, someone at Ninkasi is a metal fan. What gives?
JAMIE FLOYD: Basically I like to have as much fun as I can with brewing and all that. I like all kinds of music, but definitely there’s a bunch of us that work here that like our old school metal, new school metal, punk rock and all kinds of stuff.

Who came up with the name Sleigh’r for your winter seasonal?
FLOYD: It was sort of a collaboration. My accounts manager, Troy, came up with it when we were trying to think up another seasonal name. Everyone kind of has a Christmas themed [beer] and we came up with the idea of having a gnomey-looking Santa throwing the horns.

Any idea if Slayer has seen or tried your beer?
FLOYD: We didn’t hear from anyone’s lawyer so that’s a good start. My graphic artist is also into music and metal and is very careful to not allow for it to be enough to be copyright infringement.

Have you ever heard anyone order a pint by yelling. “FUCKING SLEIGH’R!!!!!!! at the top of their lungs?
Floyd: People get really excited about it. A lot of people think it’s beyond great. Sleigh’r fans are motivated, let’s put it that way.

Is Eugene an overlooked craft beer destination in the NW?
FLOYD: “We have a really strong beer community down here with a lot of really good brewers. It’s just that most of them are brewpubs so they don’t distribute outside the city, or [they] have very limited distribution in the Portland area. [Eugene] definitely doesn’t have the same mystique as Portland, but we have just as good of a beer culture.

Have you done other metal-themed beers?
FLOYD: Back when I worked at Steelhead Brewery, I made a beer called By-Tor’s Bane when Rush was on tour and I’m pretty sure [the band] ended up trying it. Also our Spring Reign was supposed to be called Spring Loaded, and the visual element to it was two .38 Specials with poppies coming out of them—kind of our guns and poppies tribute beer. The government wouldn’t let us use the word “loaded.”

Adem Tepedelen once stood in line behind Ken Kesey at Safeway in Eugene.

Blackened Beer: Decibel 73, November 2010

2011-01-31T07:13:00.000-08:00

Beer, like metal, is an ever evolving thing. Just as new metal subgenres are created and new sounds, techniques and styles are introduced, so too does the very basic science of brewing continue to evolve, as brewers take the raw materials and riff upon centuries-old recipes.

And as if Satan himself planned it, two innovative movements—one beer, one metal—bearing very similar names have arisen practically simultaneously. On the music side we have Cascadian Black Metal and on the beer side Cascadian Dark Ale. For those not in the know, Cascadia is the proposed name for an independent sovereign state that includes Washington, Oregon and the southern part of British Columbia. Now, for most people in this area, the idea of Cascadia is a goof, but there are those who take it very seriously and actually propose that we secede from the US and Canada and form our own separate government. Yeah, right, hippies.

Back to reality. While we can’t really explain the phenomenon of CBM (though we suspect some new mutant form of hippy may be involved), we do know a thing or two about this CDA, typically a well-hopped dark beer that’s like a cross between a porter and an IPA—both roasty and hoppy. Though the origin of the style is up for debate what can’t be disputed is the fact that it has rather rapidly become a buzzed about beer here in Cascadi—uh, the Northwest.

Deschutes came out with their Hop in the Dark Cascade Dark Ale (May to Sept.) seasonal, right about the same time Phillips (Victoria, BC) released their Skookum Cascadian Brown Ale. Portland, OR’s Hopworks has Secession Black India Pale Ale, while Widmer (also in PDX) offers up W’10 Pitch Black IPA. Suddenly there’s roasty, hoppy beers everywhere. There was even a symposium held in Portland earlier in the year to help define this new brew so that CDA can become an officially recognized style. I can’t really see Decibel convening such a thing to discuss CBM, but there’s no doubt an online forum somewhere hashing it all out.

For those of you not in Cascadia, look for offerings from Avery (New World Porter), 21st Amendment (Back in Black), Dogfish Head (India Brown Ale), Southern Tier (Iniquity) and anything described as a” dark” or “black” IPA, as ridiculously contradictory as that is.

Adem Tepedelen can’t wait to try an Albino Porter, the brewing equivalent to White Metal.

Beer Festivals: Like Wacken, Only Without The Metal Bands, Decibel 72, Oct. 2010

2011-01-30T19:19:00.000-08:00

Of the twelve months in a year that we drink beer, September is by far the best. Two of our favorite beer festivals happen in September: the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, CO (9/16-18) and the Great Canadian Beer Festival in Victoria, BC (9/10-11). As you can probably imagine, the GABF, which is in its 28th year, is considerably larger than its Canadian counterpart (now in its 17th year), a reflection of both the population difference and general interest in craft beer between the two countries. For further comparison’s sake, the 2009 GABF featured 457 breweries pouring 2,100 beers (hell yeah!) while the 2009 GCBF hosted 50+ breweries (many from the States) who poured close to 200 beers. Which, if you’re doing the math, is still more than enough to get you plenty gooned.

Beer festivals are actually a lot like European metal festivals in that there are a lot of drunk people, most of them are dudes and many sport big, burly beards. And like big, multi-stage metal festivals, it is imperative that you go into a beer festival with something resembling a plan, otherwise you’ll be haphazardly stumbling around and not maximizing your beer-drinking potential.

First of all, arrange in advance for someone else to drive your soon-to-be-besotted ass home. There are way more beers at these festivals than any one person should attempt to drink in a day or two, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. This is a celebration of beer, after all, so check “moderation” at the door and go nuts. Second, unless you want your all-day festival experience to end after an hour, don’t start the day with double-digit ABV barleywines and imperial IPAs. Not only will you obliterate your tastebuds with hops, you won’t even remember any subsequent beers you manage to dump down your gullet. We suggest you start with crisp and refreshing and work your way up to heavy and skull-crushing.

Third, unless you just really gotta try the “buzz” beers of the festival, avoid any booth with a huge lineup. You’re there to drink beer, not stand in line, and we can assure you that there are many, many other great beers to be consumed at booths where you can walk right up and get served right away. Finally, if you happen to get a beer that you don’t like, find an appropriate receptacle (or the ground at GCBF, which is held outside) and dump the offending brew. Life’s too short to drink shitty beer. Even a little bit.

Adem Tepedelen also enjoys beer festivals held in other months of the year.

Hey That's My Bike...I Mean Beer: Decibel 71, Sept. 2010

2011-01-30T17:44:00.000-08:00

Our decade-plus spent playing in bands that never much amounted to anything wasn’t, as it turns out, all for naught. Yeah, we’ve got a few 7” singles to show for our efforts, but perhaps the best thing this foolhardy pursuit of rock stardom provided was a lot of time spent in bars. A lot. Let’s just say that given the opportunity to “sample the wares” at these, ahem, fine drinking establishments, we did our fair share. And we can’t help but think that ultimately helped us land this distinguished position as Decibel’s beer writer.

It should be noted that our earliest musical endeavors took place in the Pacific Northwest in the mid-to-late ’80s when “microbrews” (that’s what we called them back then) were just starting to find a foothold on the West Coast. We had a bandmate who had already introduced us to “imports” (higher alcohol, better taste) like Sheaf Stout and Elephant Malt Liquor, but it was an epiphany when a Portland-grown brewpub chain, McMenamin’s, opened the High Street Brewery & Café a block from our apartment in Eugene, OR, in ’88 or ’89. Mind you, they were still working out the kinks at the time and the $1.75 pints sometimes tasted a little funky and frequently caused bad headaches after just a pint or two. But for an after-practice booze-up, it was still a lot better than the 40 ouncers of PBR and Coors we usedta buy from the corner grocery for $.99.

When college was done and we moved the band to Seattle, where shit was really happening—both music- and beer-wise—we truly got a taste of what good brews were all about. There are two beers from that era that are still iconic for us—Widmer Hefeweizen and Redhook ESB. We don’t really drink either of them today, but they were ubiquitous back when your choices of good domestic beer were sorely limited.

Today Redhook is partially owned by Anheuser-Busch who is owned by, I dunno, the Sheinhardt Wig Co.? And Widmer’s Hefeweizen, as it turns out, is kind of bastardization of the traditional German style. But the Pacific Northwest, as you might have heard, has a helluva lot of amazing beer now. Thus it’s not surprising that we called it quits in the late ’90s, when we realized that we enjoyed the good beer and socializing more than playing to 15 or 20 friends on a Tuesday night. We can still drink beer like a champ, but don’t ask us to play “Systematic Break.” We have no fucking clue how it goes.

Adem Tepedelen played in a bunch of bands you never heard of, so don’t ask.

Can It!: Decibel 70, August 2010

2011-01-30T17:03:00.000-08:00

It’s likely that most people’s first beer experience involved a can, and it probably wasn’t anything savored much beyond the intoxicating effect it offered. The can is the ubiquitous delivery system in the world of nasty/tasteless, adjunct-laden pale American lagers. Thus, many craft-beer drinkers have a natural aversion to drinking any brew out of a can. We, as staunch a fine beer-drinker as they come. would like to suggest that perhaps this particular aluminum phobia needs to be re-evaluated. So, we’ve enlisted some of America’s finest craft brewers to help make our point. Pay attention.

Craft beer in cans is better than bottles because it is convenient, cools quicker, takes up less space, will not shatter, has a third of the carbon footprint and can be crushed on your forehead. Craft beer in cans is just cool.
Brian O’Reilly, Sly Fox brewmaster
Royersford, PA

The only place for craft beer is in a can—year round, man. Cans keep beer fresher longer while minimizing the impact on Ma Nature. [Plus], highly portable, unbreakable cans enable craft beer lovers to easily enjoy great beer in places where glass bottles are not welcome or allowed: trailside, boat, backpacks, the beach, pool, river, slope, tub, golf course and anywhere on Mother Nature’s green planet.
Chad Melis, Oskar Blues marketing director
Longmont, CO

Top 5 outta 666 reasons why craft beer is better in a can
5) No UV light exposure
4) Cans are metal
3) Less risk to band from exposure to thrown objects
2) Shotgun!
1) Easily and safely crushed in the pit
Todd Haug, Surly brewmaster/Powermad guitarist
Minneapolis, MN

The best thing about craft beer in cans is that you can take great beer with you when you're doing things that you can't bring glass for. So if you're having sex in a canoe, your beer doesn't have to be similar. (Fucking close to water, that is.)
Daniel Kahn, Buckbean brewmaster
Reno, NV

These are, of course not the only craft brewers to can their beers, but they are some of the higher profile proponents of it. Others to look for this summer include offerings from: Uncommon, 21st Amendment, Southern Star, New Belgium, Half Acre, Sun King, Big Sky and Ska. Buckbean also hosts an annual Canfest in Reno, celebrating fine beer in a can.

In a blind tasting Adem Tepedelen was unable to distinguish canned beer from bottled beer. So there.

Beer-Drunk Baseball: Decibel 69, July 2010

2011-01-30T16:36:00.000-08:00

Though you’ll be reading this a couple months into our favorite season of the year (baseball), we’re writing it with giddy anticipation of our team’s home opener in Safeco Field. The quality of baseball we will enjoy from our upper deck seats on this holiest of days may not exactly be world class—the term “anemic offense” seems to be the best descriptor of the 2010 team—and definitely varies from year to year, yet the beer experience rarely disappoints. And, as you must all know, (good) beer makes everything better, at least for a little while.

We pity the poor saps who have to watch baseball at Coors Field in Denver, Busch Stadium in St. Louis and Miller Park in Milwaukee, however. Theirs is a beer experience guaranteed to be disappointing and predictable. See, when the naming rights to a ball park have been sold to a giant beer conglomerate, your selection will be rather limited and obvious, full of the usual bland suspects. Those poor suckers never stood a chance.

Yes, Safeco Field pours a lot of the same products—even in craft beer-soaked Seattle the majority of people still drink watery pale lager and the like, we’re chagrined to report—but without trying to sound all braggy, we’ve got two better-than-average breweries/brew pubs (Pyramid and Elysian) within spitting distance of the park and local brews and other craft beers are decently represented inside.

First pitch is 3:40 pm for the home opener, but ours is a schedule dictated largely by the beery goodness we will augment this celebration with. Getting properly lubricated before being subject to the brutal stadium prices is a necessity, if for no other reason so we can tolerate the inevitable playing of “Cotton Eye Joe” on the PA. We’re already putting together our pre-game lineup—lead off with a Manny’s Pale Ale or two at Hooverville (where the peanuts are free) and then follow that up with the powerful hop smack of Thunderhead IPA batting clean-up in the Pyramid beer garden—with the care and thought of a big league manager. Once inside, since there are plenty of taps pouring good craft beer throughout the stadium, we’re not afraid to go to the bench: i.e. the shortest available line.

While we approach this first home game with all the early-season optimism we can muster, we also realize that the results on the field, which we have no control over, may be disappointing. The delicious, refreshing beer we’ll be drinking, however, won’t let us down—whether it’s game 1 or 162—and that we have a say in.

Adem Tepedelen would like to formally apologize to the other occupants of section 331 on April 12, 2010, for his blatant disregard of most of Safeco Field’s Code of Conduct.

More Beer Lit For Beer Nerds (And Aspriring Beer Nerds)

2010-06-22T11:05:00.000-07:00

So as to avoid any 2-year-old-smoking-boy type controversy, I will refrain from showing a picture of my son with his snoot in a beer glass. But, truth be told, he does like to take a whiff —that means smell, NOT taste—of what his dad is drinking. And, as detailed in my Brewtal Truth column in the June issue of Decibel, he likes to look at my various beer books, pointing out all the brews Daddy likes (Avery!) and doesn't like (Budweiser!).

Though he hasn't given it a thorough flip-through yet, I know he's going to enjoy The Beer Trials by Seamus Campbell and Robin Goldstein as much as I did. Aside from the usual basic information about beer styles and beer terminology, this 300+ page book features reviews/ratings of 250 beers from around the world—everything from Bud Light to Czechvar. The ratings are from 1-10 (though strangely there is nothing lower than a 3 or higher than a 9) and were done by a panel of Portlandites who tasted the beers blind and against other beers in their similar style. So, for instance, MGD wasn't rated against North Coast's Old Rasputin. It was rated as to its, ahem, quality as a pale American lager.

I liked the fact that the information about the beer accompanying the rating was generally good and presented in an irreverent, somewhat snarky way, but the comments on the label/bottle design were, for the most part, just pointless. Another slightly annoying thing was the constant complaints about the beers in the green and clear bottles being lightstruck. Because they rated so many beers sold in green or clear bottles (which allow light to enter and basically negatively affect the beer) the reader is constantly reminded these bottles are bad for storing beer for more than like 30 seconds. We get it! Perhaps the authors should have simply said at the beginning, "basically all beers we rate that are in green or clear bottles will be lightstruck to some degree, so let the buyer/consumer beware." Then they could have simply noted in the rating when the tasters detected it, rather than continually grousing about it. It really gets old.

Other than that, this is a good resource, and I like the way they established their ratings. I'll definitely use this as a reference for many years to come. Hopefully there will be updates and future editions.

Oly Delivers The Allagash!

2010-06-09T13:48:00.000-07:00

I love the irony of a dude named "Oly" sending me a big effin' box of Allagash beer. Yep, it's one of the perks of this job. I not only got to interview one of my favorite bands about one of my favorite albums for Decibel Magazine (Trouble's Psalm 9, in issue #62, Dec. 2009), I got a full selection of Allagash's finest for my efforts.

So, what's the connection between Allagash and Trouble? A dude named Oly, of course. Jeff "Oly" Olson was Trouble's longtime on-again/off-again drummer. He's the guy who played on Psalm 9, so while I was interviewing him for that Hall of Fame article it came up that he worked at Allagash. When I finally was able to follow up on that hot tip, I interviewed him a second time—this time for my Brewtal Truth column in Decibel—mostly about beer and what he does at Allagash. Shortly thereafter a box of Allagashy goodness arrived that contained a bottle each of their Tripel, Dubbel, Black, Curieux and 4 bottles of the White. None of which I had tasted before. All of which (so far) are amazing. I've only tasted the White and the Tripel because I'm cellaring the other three for a bit to see how they age. That said, they may not last the year if the right occasion comes along to pop one or two open. I'll admit it, I'm weak that way.

As for tasting notes, well the Tripel is a thing to behold—a really well-built take on the mammoth Belgian style. There's tons of tempting fruit ester aromas and the taste is pleasantly (slightly) sweet and spicy, thanks to a decent dose of hops to balance everything out. The White would be the perfect beer to introduce a neophyte to the witbier style. It's just amazingly complex, refreshing and well-balanced.

Tr00 Kvlt Beer

2010-04-27T08:23:00.000-07:00

Been trying to do a blog post, at the very least, to coincide with each of my Brewtal Truth columns in Decibel, but I have fallen behind on that a bit. So think back to my April column about German beer and this one will make more sense.

I came across this beauty in Tim Hampson's The Beer Book and figured that any readers looking for thee most kvlt beer-drinking experience need look no further. And it gets even better. Here's what the brewery's website (Google-translated for total, ahem, accuracy) had to offer about this lager:

"A real party beer tart – tasty – crisp no matter where, whether at home or with friends at an event.

The little flip-top bottle promises always a certain freshness when opened.

Maria our brewer says to look Schlodien KULT 'swallow'"

I'm not so sure about that last part, and there's no mention of whether it's popular with the black metal crowd, but with a name like Schlodi Kult it's gotta be good.

You've Got beer Mail (Part 2)

2010-03-03T14:06:00.000-08:00

We've heard Etan's side of our beer swap (below)—how it made him feel all naughty and such—so now it's my turn. For me, the fun began when I went to my mailbox to pick up a bunch of packages that had stacked up (it really makes the UPS Store grumpy). Amidst the usual assortment of promo CDs, boxes of beer samples and drop-directly-in-recycling-bin crapola was a giant friggin' Lava Lamp box. WTF? Since I didn't remember ordering a Lava Lamp, this struck me as odd.

Once I got the awkward thing home, it was the first box I opened. And there, cushioned by what seemed like the entire goddamn Sunday edition of the LA Times, was a 750ml bottle of The Bruery's Autumn Maple. Nice. Since I'd never had any of The Bruery's offerings, I was stoked to see this.

And there it sat in my "cellar" (a wine box in a kitchen cabinet) for the next few months, just waiting for the right occasion. Which turned out to be a playoff football game with four friends. Since I wasn't going to polish off 750ml of 10% ABV beer on my own, I figured I should share the wealth.

Though I had refrigerated it before the game, we let it warm up a little bit and poured it into red wine glasses (all that my buddy, Andrew, had). First sniff of the hazy medium-brown brew confirmed that, yes indeed, there were some yams in there. Though the pumpkin pie spices—cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice—were also in there. Not much head to speak of, but I could have happily just sniffed this beer for a quarter or two. It smelled deee-liteful.

And it tasted just as good. Incredibly complex and well-balanced would be the best way to describe it. The spices, the Belgian yeast, the maple syrup, the molasses, the yams were all present, but perfectly integrated. I instantly regretted sharing this and reconsidered my assessment that drinking it alone would have been a bad thing. A great intro to The Bruery. I am a convert.

I've already sent Etan another box o' beer and am looking forward to seeing how he packages up his next shipment as much as the getting the beer itself.

You've Got Beer Mail (Part 1)

2010-02-23T14:22:00.000-08:00

It's amazing how, once I started writing my Brewtal Truth column for Decibel Magazine, so many people started contacting me about their own love of good beer. My fellow Decibel scribe, Etan Rosenbloom, was one such person. After a few email exchanges, I proposed that he and I do a beer swap, since he lives in Southern California and might have access to some hard-to-get beers that I might not ever see up here in the PNW.

I touched on this very subject (beer trading) in my latest Brewtal Truth column in the March issue (which you can buy here), but I figured it would also be cool to detail the trade itself in a blog post. So, here you'll find Etan's notes on our first swap. The next installment will be my take.

Etan's take:
There is something sexy about illegally sending beer across state lines in unmarked packages. Sending Adem that beer—my first swap—was the naughtiest thing I have ever done. And there's also something appealingly old-school about it, especially for a metal dude. The internet globalizes music, but beer still has an element of regionalism—there are some beers you just can't get without swapping. It's the closest I'll ever get to those forgotten days of demo tape trading.

Lost Abbey Red Poppy Ale
High hopes for this one. Lost Abbey is one of those breweries that, like the Profound Lore label, always comes up with beers that intrigue even if I don't particularly like them. And while a hot-off-the-presses bomber would probably have melted my tastebuds, Adem was right to warn me that this wasn't the freshest bottle. An over-long life in Adem's refrigerator all but killed what little carbonation this cherry-infused sour had, and sanded down the edges of the beer's fruity funkiness. Ghost of its former self. Although to be fair, after not enjoying New Belgium's Lips of Faith Transatlantique Kriek (a similar-tasting cherry lambic) last night, I realize that this just might not be the style for me.

Three Floyds Dark Lord (2008 vintage, black wax)
The Russian imperial stout is DEFINITELY the style for me. The label alone on this particular bottle sold me -- you really think a beastly monster in the middle of a war campaign would drink anything but the blackest, heaviest, maltiest stout imaginable? The beer oozed out of the bottle into my tulip glass. Looked more like tar than anything imbibable. It coated every air molecule within half a foot distance with cocoa and roasted coffee; they use pungent Intelligentsia beans to brew this shit, and it sure as hell smells like it. And oh my, how can a beer so evil taste so luscious? The Dark Lord hides its 13% ABV and vestigial hoppiness in massive, complex malt combinations. Strong chocolate and coffee, sure, but strong hints of caramel and vanilla too. Nothing unexpected in the profile, but every flavor I've come to expect in this style was deepened and brightened beyond belief. I paired my Dark Lord with some nice sharp New Zealand cheddar which just enhanced its creaminess all the more. I live for such indulgence. All hail the Dark Lord.

Bring on Swap 2.0.

Surly Brewmaster Talks Thrash

2010-01-14T08:32:00.001-08:00

The February 2010 issue of Decibel is just hitting the stands (or you can buy it here) and my Brewtal Truth column in that issue features Todd Haug, guitarist for ’80s thrashers Powermad and the brewmaster at Surly Brewing. Since space is short in the column, I figured I’d put up some additional material from my interview.

We know you were a fan of drinking good beer as a young thrasher, but where did you get the itch to start brewing it yourself?
Todd Haug: I started home brewing when I was 21. And then from there it kept going as far as my interest in where the flavors came from in the raw material side of the brewing. Then I got a part-time job at a local brewery—they’re big now, but back then weren’t too big—called Summit and that worked out pretty well with my writing and rehearsing schedule. [Brewing’s] just kind of become more and more ingrained in my life as far as not only as a career or a financial income—certainly I’m still playing music—but [brewing’s] taken over a little bit more than music.

So, what does being the brewmaster at Surly entail?
Haug: Part of my background is mechanical, so I do a lot of welding and mechanical stuff to keep the brewery running. Also, all the recipe formulations are mine and part of my job. Omar [Ansari] is the owner; I’m not the owner. Me and my wife own a small restaurant in our neighborhood in Minneapolis and because we hold a liquor license, there are some tied-house laws that prevent brewery, distillery and winery owners from having a liquor license in their name, so the bottom line is that even if I wanted to be an owner or me and Omar wanted to partner up, it would be difficult for me at this point. So this works out kind of well for me. I have no risk, so I get a steady income and as it has grown, it’s nice to be compensated.

Has the recent resurgence in thrash gotten more people looking for old Powermad material?
Haug: Yeah, definitely. Especially in Europe. We have a lot of rabid fans who still want to hear us, still want us to play live. We did a show at a festival in Germany a couple of years ago and that was great. We’ll hopefully be done writing some new material this winter. A lot of people still ask for new stuff. So, yeah, there’s definitely an interest. What we see in the younger listeners who weren’t around for us originally, they’re discovering us on Youtube. It’s kind of funny to see younger listeners who weren’t even born in the ’80s excited about us. That’s kind of cool. That’s certainly a testament to metal in general and to this country’s finally accepting it as a big part of the music scene.”

Is any of the old material still available?
Haug: Our old record company, Warner Bros., is not interested in supporting any of that, as far as re-releasing anything, so [vocalist/guitarist] Joel Dubay has done a lot of work trying to get either all of that stuff on iTunes or whatever.

[Powermad T-shirts are available at the band’s website.]

The Mutt That Got Left Behind: Flying Dog's Horn Dog Barleywine

2009-10-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

Barleywine is a strange beast. Especially some of the West Coast versions that are like triple IPAs or something, positively stuffed with hops and maxing out in the double-digit ABV.

I wrote a feature on barleywine last summer for the latest issue of Imbibe magazine and part of the story involved tasting notes on 10 different examples of the style from various US brewers. Well, it should have been 11 US brewers, but Flying Dog didn't get their sample of Horn Dog to me in time. So, I figured rather than writing tasting notes about it on the blog last summer, I'd wait until the issue came out and it was more seasonally appropriate.

Had I been able to include Horn Dog in the article's tasting notes, it surely would have been one of my favorites (not that they were rated, but I'm just sayin'...). First of all, I should mention that the bottle they sent is the 2007 vintage so it's had some good bottle time. Flying Dog describes Horn Dog as an English-style barleywine, which basically means that it is not defined by a huge hit of hops. This is all about big malt character. The color, a rich auburn brown, is the first indicator that this is a little different. Though the ABV is 10.2%, you don't really get much of an alcohol hit from the nose. There is a rich, malty, grainy character that suggests sweet things to come. On the palate it's pretty well balanced—there's hops there on the finish, but the time in the bottle has softened the bitterness nicely. You get a tasty mouthful of bittersweet chocolate and loads of dried fruit. Tasty.

Scott Ian And Jerry Cantrell Open Dead Man's Hand in Vegas

2009-10-14T13:24:00.000-07:00

Guitarists Scott Ian (Anthrax) and Jerry Cantrell (Alice in Chains) are promising to bring some "grit" to the Las Vegas bar scene with their new endeavor, Dead Man's Hand, set to open in early Nov. The focus is apparently on "great music, cool atmosphere and affordable drinks all year long."

We're just wondering what beers they'll have on tap. PBR? Bud? Anything good?

It doesn't sound like the focus is going to be on hosting live music, but there will be a stage and apparently Cantrell and Ian will be part of the "house band" with some of the as-yet-unrevealed partners. Gotta wonder, with that name, if Lemmy is one of those partners.

Creem Was There First...

2009-08-13T12:54:00.001-07:00

I might as well admit that Creem Magazine (R.I.P., sort of) pretty much provided the blueprint for everything I've done as a rock writer...including its original version of "beer and heavy metal."

They did a series of "ads" for a fake beer (see below) that featured a different band in each one. The one above is Kiss, uh, obviously. Most of the bands featured in the ads were punk and new wave artists, but Aerosmith was also in one. As was the Greatest American Rock Band of All Time™, Cheap Trick.

Best Use of Beer Cans in a Metal Video

2009-08-12T12:10:00.000-07:00

And a pretty damn good song, too.

Beer as a Wine Substitute?

2009-07-31T12:56:00.000-07:00

Where did July go? Can't believe it's been three weeks since my last post. No excuses here.

Been meaning to post this for awhile because I found it kind of curious. The beer is called INEDIT and it comes from Spanish brewer Estrella Damm. It first came to my attention because renowned Spanish chef Ferran Adria was apparently involved in its creation. The idea was to make "a beer specifically created to accompany food." Uh, is that because all the other ones we've been drinking aren't any good with food? I don't get it.

So, I had to try it. Put in a request with the publicist and was sent a 750ml bottle with a press release talking about everything other than what kind of beer this is. It talked extensively about how it pairs with food, but there were no details about the beer itself. Very odd.

So I popped open the bottle and gave it a try—with some pizza. I figured that if it's made for pairing with food, let's see how it does up against a pizza. Well, as it turns out, it's basically a witbier. And pizza is probably not what they had in mind when they were brewing this beer.

Anyway, here are my unedited notes:

Pours a big head that dissipates almost immediately
Hazy straw yellow color
Nose is medicinal and farmy, like fresh cut hay
High carbonation
Nice typical witbier flavors: cloves, spices
Citrusy notes on the finish
Not much hops or malt
Pretty clean and refreshing
What little finish it has is light, citrusy and dry

The pizza pretty much obliterated this beer, but it was still refreshing enough. The people marketing this have to do a better job of figuring out who's going to buy it, though. They clearly don't think that beer drinkers will be interested in it. Maybe they're right.

Mastodon Premium Lager from Mahr's Bräu

2009-07-07T04:54:00.000-07:00

Festival season is in full swing in Europe and the July 4 Sonisphere date in Germany saw Mastodon presented with their own beer brewed by Bamberg brewery Mahr's Brau (whose brewer, Stephan Michel, is apparently a fan of the band). Two hundred bottles of this "premium lager" were made just for this appearance. No word on whether the band consumed all 200 before their appearance, but I'm sure they tried.

Shameless Self Promotion (sort of)

2009-07-03T06:20:00.000-07:00

OK, I only contributed two chapters to this just-published book, but I gotta get in a plug for the rest of the Decibel crew. Here's the lowdown, per the listing at Amazon.com:

"Precious Metal gathers pieces from Decibel magazine's most popular feature, the monthly “Hall of Fame” which documents the making of landmark metal albums via candid, hilarious, and fascinating interviews with every participating band member.

Decibel's editor-in-chief Albert Mudrian, has selected and expanded the best of these features, creating a definitive collection of stories behind the greatest extreme metal albums of all time."

My chapters—on Black Sabbath's Heaven and Hell and Diamond Head's Lightning to the Nations—just happen to be the first two in the book and both were extensively expanded from the original versions that appeared in the magazine in 2008.

Publishing date was supposed to be July 13, but I think Amazon is already selling them.

Mmmmmm, Tastes Like Oppression

2009-07-03T05:52:00.000-07:00

Here's How I Remember Michael Jackson

2009-06-25T19:32:00.001-07:00

As if Diver Down wasn't enough, Michael Jackson convinced me that, yes indeed, Eddie Van Halen had jumped the shark and Van Halen would never be good again. Which was only reinforced by 1984 the following year. Thanks, Michael.

Bloody Red

2009-06-16T05:33:00.000-07:00

OK, so upon closer examination of the label on Deschutes' new Red Chair IPA, it isn't as br00tal as it seemed at first. I was thinking the beer was named after some haunted ski lift chair where a grisly murder involving two teens occurred in the '70s. Nope, it's just the oldest operating lift at Mt. Bachelor. Whatever, it's still pretty metal.

This beer is part of Deschutes' Bond Street Series that pays tribute to the unique brews they offered in their original Bond Street Pub in Bend, Oregon. This IPA was apparently a hit with the regulars and so Deschutes is bottling it seasonally in 22 oz. bombers for the rest of us to enjoy. And, yeah, it's easy to see why this was popular.

It says IPA on the bottle, and Deschutes is rarely stingy with the hops, so I was expecting a very hoppy, bitter beer. But I was actually pleasantly surprised at the depth—and color—of it. It pours a nice coppery orange and smells of sweet caramel, spice and fruit. The taste ain’t exactly typical IPA, though. There’s a good dose of hops and a crisp bitter finish, but there’s a real complexity to the malt-hops interplay that almost makes it taste more like an ESB. It’s fruity, floral, rich and yet still really easy to drink—a tough combo to pull off.

This is not a standard, cookie-cutter IPA. In fact, it’s definitely a loose interpretation of the style, but done very, very well. Dunno if I'd be drinking this a lot in the summer, but it's a nice diversion every now and then from the lighter thirst quenchers.

Drink This In

2009-06-12T11:56:00.000-07:00

I really don't want to turn this into a blog about metal bands that sing about beer, but I just couldn't resist a quick post about Tankard's latest (which was actually released in the States the same day as the latest Alestorm). This German quartet has been playing beer-drunk thrash since the mid-'80s, basically predating Municipal Waste by nearly 20 years. And they're still just as juvenile and retarded as ever. Check out songs like "Deposit Pirates," "Stay Thirsty!" and "Myevilfart."

But, this is more about the cover. I just couldn't not post that beauty. So metal, so stupid, so awesome. I can't help but imagine that this is what the average long-time Tankard fan must look like at this point.

Musically, Thirst is pretty typical old-school thrash. These guys are old pros by this point and don't really seem to be interested in reinventing the wheel, as it were. But, look at that cover! What does it mean?

Pop Skull: Significantly Better Than Moonshine

2009-06-04T13:20:00.000-07:00

When I was working on a limited edition beer piece for All About Beer magazine back in February, I got in touch with Barnaby Struve, one of the brewers at Three Floyds, so that I could interview him about their Dark Lord Russian imperial stout that's caused such a mania. Turns out Barnaby is a major metalhead—and a really nice guy, to boot—so we hit it off immediately. Anyway, I meekly asked for a sample bottle of Dark Lord so I that I would be able to write about it authortatively in my article and he graciously said that he'd put something together for me. Two days later a massive box arrived via FedEx with two bottles of the 2008 vintage of Dark Lord…plus 2 bottles of Brian Boru, 1 bottle of Oatgoop and 1 bottle of Pop Skull, Three Floyds' collaboration with Dogfish Head (and the reason for this post).

I was able to write about Dark Lord for the article, but just didn't have the space to talk about the others, specifically the Pop Skull (apparently an old slang term for moonshine), which was released right around the same time as Dark Lord in April, and was available on draught at DLD. So, I thought I'd just knock out a quick post about my impressions of it, even though it's probably all but impossible to get now.

I actually opened and tasted it with five friends on the same evening I tasted all the other beers mentioned in the article, but it was the only one that didn't get mentioned, and not because we didn't like it. I tried to include everyone's feedback in my notes, and one of the best I got for Pop Skull was that it tasted like tiramisu—kinda boozy, a little sweet and with some definite coffee and chocolate notes. The smell was funky, herbaceous, woody and smoky—no doubt a result of the Palo Santo wood aging and "botanicals" involved—and the color reminded me of muddy coffee.

I don't know who was responsible for what in this two-brewery collaboration, but this seems to have hallmarks of both—the Palo Santo wood that Dogfish Head has been using and the cool label and "not normal" beer-making that Three Floyds is known for. Wish I had more.

Alestorm: More Storm Than Ale

2009-06-02T06:37:00.000-07:00

I feel compelled to write about the new Alestorm CD simply because, well, the band has “ale” in its name. And the fact that they are “Scottish pirate metal.” Talk about your narrow categories. Can’t be more than a couple bands willing to claim allegiance to that microgenre.

While I’ve definitely listened to some of the European bands of this ilk—the ones that dress funny and utilize folk instruments to augment the standard metal lineup—I can’t say that I’m a huge fan. (And, seriously, is this just my American bias, but who exactly is?)

Nonetheless, I hoist my, uh, flagon of ale in salute to these dudes for their jolly metal songs of drinking (“That Famous Ol’ Spiced”) and piracy (“Keelhauled”). The best part of this advance promo CD, graciously provided by Napalm Records, are the voiceovers done by the singer—“Yaarrr, you’re listening to the new Alestorm album, Black Sails at Midnight…remember, piracy is a crime”—at the beginning of several tracks to prevent the album from being "pirated" by unscrupulous journalists (and whoever else receives these) via the Interweb.

I can't help but feel like I’m getting mixed messages here. On the one hand Alestorm seem to be promoting piracy, and on the other they condemn it. Very confusing.

But seriously, Black Sails at Midnight is actually a good listen. Alestorm’s only nod to folk/pagan metal are keyboards (a keytar, no less!) that occasionally sound like an accordion or horns or strings. And after a few too many pints of Wee Heavy, I could actually see myself yo-ho-hoing along to “Wolves of the Sea.”

Feedback + Beer = Good Times

2009-05-31T08:48:00.001-07:00

OK, so this isn’t an entirely beer-related post, but it definitely pertains to the general theme of this blog. Bear with me. I just wanted to celebrate the opening of the Feedback Lounge in West Seattle last month.

Why is this pertinent to a blog about beer and heavy metal? Mostly because one of the co-owners, Jeff Gilbert, is one of the most metal (and beer-drinkingest) dudes I know (see tiny photo below for confirmation). I met him in the mid-’80s when I was a teenager putting out a heavy metal fanzine called Heavy Heroes. He lived in a Seattle suburb at the time and had started his own record label, C.O.M.A. Records. Naturally, he wanted to promote his bands and I wanted free records.

Years later, we both wrote for The Rocket Magazine and I could always count on seeing him at most shows I went to—always with a bottle of Bud Lite in hand (yeah, no accounting for taste). Anyway, he has been a tireless supporter of Seattle music—from metal to grunge and punk—and now he finds himself behind the bar (figuratively) instead of in front of it.

I haven’t yet been in the Feedback Lounge myself, and I can’t vouch for its beer selection, but if the place is anything like the dude who put his blood, sweat and tears into getting it up and running, it’s worth checking out. (And if the beer selection doesn't do it for you, you can always go next door to the Beveridge Place after you’ve had a bite to eat out on the Feedback Lounge's Sunndeck.)

Disinterred Brews of the Damned!

2009-05-28T09:40:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, this looks a little like some psychopath's backyard grave, but I swear that it is both metal and beer related--and doesn't involve any corpses. This was sent to me (as were the following shots) by Municipal Waste drummer Dave Witte, who is a self-professed "avid beer drinker/collector," and is featured in the latest installment of my Brewtal Truth column in the July 2009 issue of Decibel. Dave not only drums and has drummed for some amazingly cool metal bands (King Generator, Discordance Axis, Burnt By the Sun, Birds of Prey, Human Remains, and Muni Waste), he knows his beer.

What you're seeing here are pictures of Dave and his beer-loving buddies in Richmond, VA, digging up the beers they buried a year ago. Yes, they "cellar" their beers in the ground. Which not only keeps them at a nice even temperature, it also keeps the dudes, who each contributed two bottles, from cracking open these special brews in a drunken moment of weakness.

They buried seven buckets of beers, plus one giant bottle of Gulden Draak! This disinterrment actually occurred in March and Dave and crew were pleased by the results. "Some of those beers tasted so great," he said, "especially the Dogfish Old School Barleywine--man it was incredible."

It went so well, these nuts are thinking to do this a few times a year. And, as you can see from the sheer number of bottles that were dug up in March, there seems to be no lack of interest in this very metal version of cellaring beer.

Biermacht!

2009-03-28T14:56:00.001-07:00

My first recollection of a connection between beer and heavy metal came via a Portland speedcore band called Wehrmacht in 1985. I was well under the drinking age at that point and I’m sure most of the dudes in the band were too. But that didn’t stop them from consuming mass quantities of cheap American lager and writing a lot of songs about it: “Drink Beer, Be Free,” “United Shoe Brothers” (about drinking beer from a boot), “The Beer is Here.” Hell, they even named their second album Biermacht.

So, even though this blog isn’t really about the kind of binge-drinking shenanigans they got up to, nor is it a celebration of buying “a case of Lucky Lager for $7.47,”I nonetheless salute their dedication to beer and heavy metal.