Growing up, I wasn’t always the biggest Beatles fan. In fact, for the longest time, I actually had a distaste for them. When my family would go to a Christmas tree farm to cut down our own tree, there was a time when they were picking me up from a friend’s house after a sleep-over, and they’d normally be showing up early after I had stayed up late playing video games. On the radio on the way to the tree…
The Beatles were on top of their game in 1966. They had just released Rubber Soul in December of 1965, and were riding high with accolades. Rubber Soul had effectively changed how pop albums would be created moving forward, with The Beatles making an effort to make an entire artistic album from start to finish, rather than one or two singles with some filler thrown in. The band’s business manager, Brian Epstein, wanted to capitalize on the Rubber Soul high…
It’s 1967, and the Beatles are burned out. They’ve been touring extensively around the world, complete with accompanying interviews and other press engagements. They’d become dissatisfied with the composition of their concert audience, who they felt only came for the spectacle of seeing the Beatles and to scream, rather than being there to actually listen to the music. They were also dealing with a severe public backlash due to Lennon’s “Bigger than Jesus” comment. They had begun to record a…
Let’s just get one thing straight from the beginning, the Beatles are the greatest, most influential, and important band to ever live. There are far better researched and written accounts of their influence on music, culture, fashion, etc. than I could ever even hope to do, so I’m not going to even attempt it. What I would like to do is a basic breakdown of the 5 albums I have chosen for this series, and give a glimpse of my…
One of the coolest things about our industry is the level of camaraderie between different breweries and their brewers. We really enjoy talking and hanging out with each other and exchanging information. When we were in the planning stages of opening up Joyride, many different breweries were very open with their information in order to help us out. To this day, most brewers willfully give up just about any detail about a beer that I’m curious about. Hopefully, everyone will…
While our Irish Stout is produced and released with St. Patrick’s Day in mind, an Irish Stout can be, and should be, so much more than just a St. Pat’s Day treat. That being said, I certainly had my fair share of Stouts last night. But we shouldn’t let the word “stout” scare us off. A lot of people bunch all styles of stout together in one group, assuming they are all super thick, syrupy, boozy and in your face.…
There’s an old and famous saying in the wine industry that “It takes a lot of great beer to make great wine.” Russian River Brewing Company in the heart of California wine country even makes a beer named that. The reason is that when workers on the vineyard are sweating in the sun, they’re usually reaching for some brewskis instead of a bold Cabernet. If it takes a lot of great beer to make great wine, then it must take…
I’ll admit it, when I first got into craft beer, I didn’t give lagers, especially Pilsners, much respect. To me, the word “lager” was synonymous with with the bland, yellow, fizzy stuff I was trying to move away from. It certainly didn’t help that German and Czech lagers actually are yellow and have higher carbonation levels. However, as I matured as a craft beer drinker, I learned that “lager” wasn’t a dirty word at all, it has just been bastardized…
We were already working on a recipe for a new lower alcohol pale ale when we heard of David Bowie’s passing. Although I have never been a Bowie superfan, I respected him and his work. One of our assistant brewers, Nathan, suggested we make a Bowie tribute beer. I knew that the new pale ale I was making was going to exclusively use Simcoe hops, so I racked my brain for an appropriate tie in. Finally, I thought of Ziggy…
Is there anybody out there? One of the best concerts I have ever been to was seeing Roger Waters perform The Wall live in it’s entirety. It was fashioned after the old Pink Floyd shows, with the building of the wall between the band and the audience during the first half, before ultimately blasting it apart during the end of “The Trial.” At the end of the show, Waters addressed the audience, saying that when he wrote the album he…