What's up with beer and metal?

I like beer. I like metal. Sometimes I like drinking beer and listening to metal simultaneously.

 

I love beer and metal! Have both of them every night!

 

Listen to Wenches and Mead by AleStorm

 

In college I was introduced to BLS and Sierra Nevada by a good friend and fellow metal head. Zakk Wylde was often seen with SNPA on stage. There's nothing particularly metal about that beer, but it's synonymous with my roots in in metal and beer. That's my beer metal story. Also I caught a half empty nitro can of Guinness that Zakk tossed into the crowd and gave it to previously aforementioned friend at the concert for his bday. That's my other beer metal story. So clearly, there is a link between metal and beer, and SNPA and Guiness are the most metal beers.

 

Different Strokes! Yes, it does.

 

Lol - Originally had the theme song vid embedded but it got removed - glad I caught the screen in the background

 

Since, as maximumyuks points out, there are only two breweries that actually make a connection to metal, and a few labels here and there as brewers grope for clever names for their beers, I think the correlation is in the observer. We could probably pick other subjects at random and find similar apparent relationships.

Anyone see the movie "A Beautiful Mind"?

 

I have noticed a link between beer and metal, and I am a big fan of both.

I would argue that it is an overstatement to characterize the connection as a trend or that metal is pervasive in the craft community (or vice versa). However, I think metalheads are overrepresented in the craft beer community compared to in the world at large.

By way of quick illustration, if you bring any diverse group of people together for a non-metal event, e.g. a professional football game or just going to your local grocery store, I would guess there are usually about 1-2% that would consider themselves fans of metal. (I admit that I pulled that number out of the air with no real factual support, but on an anecdotal basis, I believe that is about right. Also, this may differ regionally - if you live in Finland, the majority of people you bump into in public may be metal lovers!) By comparison, I just went through this thread and counted the number of people who either stated or heavily implied that they love metal. I came up with 39, and adding myself to the list, 40. (Note: there were several others that I strongly suspected were metalheads based on the types of statements that they made. For instance, some people said things that revealed a knowledge of metal beyond what non-fans would typically know. But, if they did not express a clear enjoyment of the music, I ignored those posts to try and keep my count honest.) This comes out to about 24% of people on this thread listening to metal! In my experience, that is far greater than you can expect to see of metalheads "in the wild."

I think the reason for the connection is that there are some commonalities between beer and metal, such as:

1) Both are part of a niche/fringe/outsider market rather than mainstream.
2) Both have a diversity of styles. Where beer has stouts, IPAs, barleywines, and sours, metal has subgenres like power, death, thrash, and doom.
3) Both involve some effort to learn and explore, and part of the fun is finding new beers/bands that are unique and different from what you have experienced before.
4) Both often require a little more time and thought to appreciate than their more popular counterparts - the Beyonces and Bud Lights of the world.

Here are some interesting articles I found on the subject. Suffice to say, others have noticed this connection before.
http://firstwefeast.com/drink/headb...of-heavy-metal-and-craft-beer-collaborations/
http://dcheavymetal.com/2013/03/27/beer-metal/
http://www.riceandbreadmagazine.com/writer-adem-tepedelen-craft-beer-and-metal-share-kinship/

 

I have to agree there's a correlation and I also don't get it. I think it's limited to specific breweries and to take it to another level, I think in some cases it's kind of off putting. Like 3 Floyd's Permanent Funeral...What's up with that name? Stupid. Just call it Hip Hop IPA or something, right?

 

Word is that Satanic Slaughter ( http://hem.passagen.se/ztefdark/ ) will be playing in the field at HFS this Zwanze Day!

 

I think there can also be a common sense of humor with many metal heads, as well as craft beer lovers and brewers. Juvenile and lowbrow at times, subtle and sophisticated at others. Most metal fans I know(ie: older) love the music, but don't take the trappings too seriously. Same with a lot of craft beer people. Seems there's a lot of breweries that have humorous names and labels on their stuff, and a lot of beer drinkers I know are serious about the beer, but still just want to enjoy themselves. Of course, with both beer and metal(and music in general), there's those that take it too far and suck the joy out of it for the rest of us.

 

There is no joy in Black Metal. Kind of goes against the concept.

This looks nice! http://jesterkingbrewery.com/introducing-jester-king-black-metal-imperial-stout

 

Our public radio station plays several hours of jazz in the evening. One night they played something that struck me as the worst jazz I'd ever heard. Sodden tempo, watery arrangement, listless playing. And it turned out to be one of the Miles Davis-Gil Evans collaborations. (Not SoS; one of the less famous records.) A real "blind tasting" surprise there.

As for metal, I like it well. But I don't find it an enjoyable complement to craft beer - either as accompaniment or branding. The ruminative pleasures of a nice glass go much better with a 60s Blue Note album or old blues.

 

If it was long and watered down it must have been Time of the Barracudas, which was not very good and later put on the album Quiet Nights (or anything from that album), that Miles hated and did not want that album released but Columbia did anyway. Everything else done by the two I would consider as good as anything ever put on a record. I could see how maybe some of their early stuff that eventually made up Birth of Cool could be considered such, but I would disagree

 

Plus, there is nothing like funneling a few pints Stout while listening to Celtic Frost. Or an nice Birra Tocallatto while blasting Death SS at 11.

http://www.celticfrost.com/

http://www.deathss.com/

 

I usually get a tremendous amount of joy when I listen to black metal. And drinking a beer.
And when I see it live, I usually have a huge smile on my face. Maybe I've been doing it wrong all these years?
Now my wife, she does not get any joy out of it. Agony is probably closer to the emotion she feels. Maybe she's doing it right?

 

Bands like Darkthrone and Immortal obviously take themselves 100% serious 100% of the time!

 

Like Dawn of Black Hearts? Nothing like shooting yourself in the head, only to have your band-mate take a photo and use it as the next album cover! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawn_of_the_Black_Hearts

Dawn of Black Hearts.... a new Imperial Stout from HFS, this beer is as dark as winter night in Scandinavia, and the high ABV will warm your dark soul....

 

Don't forget said bandmate being killed by Varg "I'm giggling like a schoolgirl in the court room" Vikernes.

But hey, that's why I listen to stuff like Immortal, Darkthrone, Saor or Panopticon (apart from the fact the that the more monotonous basement stuff bores me shitless)
Immortal need their own beer, a super juicy IPA with their signature pose on a trve kvlt svrfboard. Oh wait..


Calling it Cascadian Wave IPA.

 

Though Black Metal and Wheat beer can never mix.

 

Black Metal should consist mainly of various Porters Stouts, Bocks and maybe a few DIPAs thrown in for good measure. Representing the progressive and avantgarde-ish side.

 

I think you're making a connection where there is none. You could make the same exact argument with any genre of music and find examples. In Asheville, pretty much every brewery has bluegrass themes because that's a popular genre of music in the area. Hell, we have an entire festival called Brewgrass. Every festival I've been to out here has bluegrass playing. Maybe I should create a topic about why beer and bluegrass seem to go so well together.

 

Every other music post on the WBAYDN thread is metal. Not a fan at all but not a big deal.

 

There is nothing metal about hip hop IPA. FFF is all about the METAL!

 

http://www.ironmaidenbeer.com/#

 

I don't know what's up with beer and metal, and I'm not going to wax poetic about sticking it the man or Big Brother, but when I tried to go to sleep at 3am on Darkness Day and my "neighbors" were blasting thrash metal until 6am, I wasn't very excited about their correlation personally.

 

I appreciate your humble approach. Cheers man.

 

What? You don't tap you toes cheerily along to the catchy kvlt tunes of black metal bands? I know I sure do... Bands like Behemoth give me much joy when I listen to them.

Anyway, regarding the thread's OP, here:



And that should explain it.

 

I love heavy metal and beer.

 

@Kuaff while I don't mind Korpiklaani or Alestorm in the background, personally I'd prefer Lagerstein. I would also note that I don't technically consider Behemoth Black Metal unless we're talking about their earlier material. Death Metal makes for lots of fun, though. I always feel joyous listening to the riffs of Carcass.

 

Maybe, maybe not...

 

Like I've said recently, what's up with Eddie being used to sell Robinson's absolutely banal 'Iron Maiden' Trooper beer?
Its a fucking disgrace.
Struise's Black Damnation series makes far more sense.

 

> Kvelertak's collab with Local Option in Chicago.

Too bad I missed the show where they had the beer.

 

No offense but I to say that places "are losing business" is a bit of a stretch. Actually, I guess you may be right but I think it's very minimal. I'm not sure if you think establishments shouldn't play music at all or should play a mix of different styles. I believe most people just tolerate whatever is playing and go for the beer, experience, people, etc.

I can promise you a good percentage of the patrons at Toronado (SF), Local Option or other metal bars I've been to weren't even "metal heads". They were tourists, locals, some metal fans, etc but very diverse. I listen to all kinds of music but if a place near me had good beer, food, people, or whatever I would still go no matter what they were playing. Maybe that's just me though. Now if I had an option btwn 2 identical places and one played music I preferred than I would go there instead but its really not that big of a deal either way.

 

I like some metal, but the stuff that you can't even understand what they're saying is annoying and I don't get the point of it.

 

I just picked up a bottle of 1349 (Collaboration between Surly, Lervig, and 1349 (some metal band)) - really excited to try it
I know Mastodon (awesome metal band) got together with Signature Brew to make their Black Tongue double black IPA as well as teaming up with Mahrs-Brau for a Zwickelbier

Those are just two off the top of my head. Enter Shikari has one. 311 is making an amber ale. Motorhead has one...there are a TON of collabs nowadays, even freakin Wil Wheaton got in on one. Maybe its not just metal, but pop-culture as a whole embracing the awesomeness of beer!

 

You're entitled to your opinion, and yours is certainly not an uncommon one. In case you would like to better get the point of it, though, here you go:

The point is the instrumental performance. In a lot of music, vocals are the focus, but in metal, especially extreme metal, the vocals often take a back seat to guitar riffing and solos. I generally think of the vocals in a death metal song as an additional percussive instrument. Lyrics from some harsh vocalists are easier to understand than others (I usually understand what Amon Amarth is singing, but nothing Portal ever sings), but I think that if you allow the vocals to punctuate the song rather than the other way around, that is closer to the intent of the music.

In all likelihood, that explanation is not going to change your taste for extreme metal, but perhaps that helps to understand what some people get out of it.

 

I would add to this that most forms of harsh vocals are just different, their appeal is not a "beautiful" aesthetic but a powerful one, attention-grabbing one. One that possibly also carries a lot of emotion.

Personally, I understand quite a lot of harsh vocalists quite well. It depends on their style and how used one is to those styles.

 

I agree with @archero. People over exaggerate the importance of lyrics all the time, when in reality all most people want from any song is a catchy tune, regardless of genre. Lyrics in many popular songs are often [not always, but often] so trite and nonsensical that no sane person is actually listening/processing the words, which shows most listeners are looking for a catchy tune (i.e. the voice as an instrument) above any verbal meaning. For example, most people can't understand half of what Kurt Cobain was singing about in many of Nirvana's songs and Smells Like Teen Spirit is often cited as having the stupidest rock lyrics of all time, but that didn't stop millions of fans from following Nirvana and changing music forever.