Beer and Music, Music and Beer, 2020 Edition

I miss my commute. Well no, not really. What I miss is that "me time," surrounded by people, yet alone. I miss living with an album, inhabiting it. A Tribe Called Quest's Low End Theory and Midnight Mauraders, Nas' Illmatic, and Quicksand's Manic Compression on the 1/9 train in high school. My commute junior year abroad in Japan, bumping Radiohead's OK Computer and REM's Up, perfect albums about displacement and the surreality of it all as I walked blocks that were at once instantly recognizable and quite literally foreign to me. For two months in 2000 I worked at Bell and Howell, on the outskirts of Ann Arbor, MI. The bus ride out of the small city and into the post-industrial, hollowed-out Midwest, which included walking across two exit ramps of Interstate 94, can't be separated from Godspeed You! Black Emperor's F♯ A♯ ∞.

I learned to love these albums through repeated plays on mass transit, or a 2-kilometer walk through Osaka, or a ferry from the north to the south island in New Zealand, in which a patch of fog in the Cook Straight suddenly had to be soundtracked by Mogwai. 

On Friday, March 13th, 2020 all that ended. That was the last day I had a commute. You always go to the show, yes? Well, on March 12th a friend and I bailed on a concert (Algiers and Hammered Hulls at the Black Cat) because of the pandemic. We still ask each other if we should have gone, now knowing it would have been a last hurrah. We made the correct choice.  

So much has been taken from us over the past nine months. People's health, people's livelihoods, people's lives. Hugging, dapping, hand-shakes. Great and small, people and customs, bars and restaurants and shops... they're gone. 

I mourn my commute not because of physically going from home to work, but because that was my time to discover and live with an album and make it mine, tying it to a place, whether that place is physical or mental. Now my commute is to go down a flight of stairs, becoming both a library worker and a hall monitor for the virtual schooling of two children. No more music, no more audiobooks, no more podcasts; it just doesn't work that way for me in 2020. 

The physical time I've gained back is not for nothing. More home-cooked meals, more time with immediate family and pets, and more time to--see below--drink beer. But damn, being able to turn up the volume and get into an album on the train,... I really miss that.

Would I fall in love with Helena Deland's debut album Someone New over the course of two weeks on the Yellow Line, my headphones accentuating the musical flourishes, the huskiness in her voice? Which part of the album would play as the train exited the tunnel after L'Enfant Station, transitioning to a bridge across the Potomac River? I don't know, and well, that sucks. I like it well enough on my laptop, often played while onions cook on the stove and two children discuss Legos, The Mandalorian, Fortnite, Overwatch, and Minecraft in the background. But it's not the same. None of this is. 

And so none of these albums are really mine. I've heard them and I enjoyed them. But they're shoes I bought, tried on, and wore a few times. They haven't yet adapted to my contours, nor mine to theirs. I really hope in 2021 we get to change that. 

Here goes. 

1) Fontaines D.C. - A Hero's Death: More mature lyrically, slower, darker, and more muscular than their excellent debut. The switch from punk-based rave ups to something closer to post-punk has treated them well.  

2) Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher: Baroque chamber pop, singer-songwriter fodder, and occasional alt-country and psych about... Dodgers fans beating up and killing Giants fans, and how Eric Clapton sucks. Anyway, it's really good.  

3) New War - Trouble in the Air: Melbourne commissioned this hometown band to perform and record on the largest pipe organ in the city. The result is minimalist and claustrophobic, appropriate soundtracking for a year of teleworking and doing without. 

4) Feminazgul - No Dawn For Men: Here are the tags for this album on Bandcamp: appalachian, metal, antifascist, atmospheric black metal, feminist. Interested? Bonus points: one of the band members works at a brewery. 

5) Dogleg - Melee: Post-hardcore/screamo that's maybe learned a thing or two from bands like Japandroids in that it's cathartic and fun to sing/scream along to. 

6) Osees - Protean Threat: John Dwyer released a lot of music this year. These 38 minutes of psych-punk are my favorite of the bunch. 

7) Nothing - The Great Dismal: Shoegaze with loud-quiet-loud dynamics, and the loud gets really loud. 

8) Stay Inside - Viewing: "What if Interpol, but post-hardcore?" It's kind of something like that. Taut, wiry, and insular, this is not the stuff is sing-alongs or fist pumps, but of quiet headbanging on a commute. Maybe one day.  

9) Gum Country - Somewhere: If Electropura-era Yo La Tengo got on the C-86 cassette it would sound something like this. 

10) Kvelertak - Splid: Touching on the past 40ish years of metal from the late '70s British new wave to '80s arenas to '90s metalcore to the present, singing in two languages, and just a joy to listen to. 

The best of the rest, or eight more albums I liked: 

Bartees Strange - Live Forever: Impressive genre-bending from across the indie-rock spectrum to RnB and rap. 

Brigid Dawson and the Mothers Network - Ballet of Apes: Slow psych, both breezy and languid, from this sometimes Osees collaborator. 

Fleet Foxes - Shore: Same as it ever was for this band. 

Kiwi Jr. - Football Money: Hits that same jangly, breezy spot as the most recent, woke, Parquet Courts album. 

No Joy - Motherhood: Things I heard in the first three songs of this album include dream pop, black metal, EDM, and slap bass. Somehow, all these in juxtaposition work. 

Porridge Radio - Every Bad.

Run the Jewels - RTJ4: Same as it ever was for this band. 

Touche Amore - Lament: I've long been aware of this band, but hadn't paid them much attention. I'm listening now. 

Best album ruined by a lead singer: Oranssi Pazuzu's Mestarin Kynsi, which sounds something like Acid Mothers Temple doing post-metal.

Singles, songs, whatever: Silverback - Klub Silberrucken; Bartees Strange - Mustang; The Weeknd - Blinding Lights; Algiers - We Can't Be Found; Protomartyr - Processed By the Boys.

In 2019 I kind of gave up on IPAs. I don't really know why, it just shook out that way. Well, they're back, including two stellar double IPAs, normally the bane of my existence. Go figure. Which style declined at IPAs' expense? Saison. I saw significantly fewer cans of that style around, which is a bummer. From March 13th to the end of the year I had three draft beers. Three! On the plus side, everyone put everything in cans, because they had to. Here's what stood out. 

In 2020 it was Port City's world, and we all just lived in it. My favorite beer? Pretty much any Port City lager in a can, but also in a bottle like their Helles and Weizenbock. Let's rank them: 

Rauch Marzen - Just a perfect, flawless beer. 

German Pils - Great American Beer Festival Gold Medal winner for a reason. 

Mexican-style Dark Lager

Helles (bottle)

Tmave Pivo - I saw a lot of this style around, which is great, and this one was the most "tmave" in terms of having a Saaz hop bite. 

Dopplebock - I've only had one of these, but it was very very good. I should get an Andechs' and go side-by-side. 

Kellerbier

Weizenbock (bottle) - This was to be 2020's Colossal release, but in a very 2020 move, it just didn't didn't meet the brewery's standards, so they brewed it again later in the year. It's very good. 

Note: I didn't have the Export. Not sure how I missed that one. 

Elsewhere in locals (plus, uh, Delaware, because why not): 

Ardent Ales Schwartzbier

Black Narrows Brewing Company Salts - A gose with oysters makes a lot of sense, hence the name of the beer. Maybe "a creamy, briny, minerality with notes of lemon" isn't for you, but it really works here. 

Dewey Beer Co Surf Wax Double IPA

Dogfish Head World Wide Stout, Utopia barrels edition - That this was ready to drink upon an August release was most impressive. 

Elder Pine Pilsner (little bit of oats and a lot of Loral hops) and Bien Veillen hoppy saison, which scratched all the right itches.

Ocelot Ebenezer IPA.

Right Proper Le Flaneur - Sherry barrel-aged "barleywine" that was our consensus pick for Boundary Stone's Battle of the Barrels.

Right Proper/Pizzeria Paradiso Friend Blend Sour Ale - Just a great balance between stone fruits and their acidity, Right Proper's house character, and foeder conditioning. 

Wheatland Spring Corn Crib American Lager - So good it spawned a hashtag. Also, I'm going to take a bow for writing this on February 3rd, "On the other hand, a lot of people are about to find out how good Wheatland Spring, Dynasty, Elder Pine, and Manor Hill can be, and we’re looking forward to chatting with a lot of familiar and friendly faces." 

Outside the DMV:

EOC Coolship Black Lager

Halfway Crooks Smoked Helles Lager

Other Half Small Riwaka Everything IPA

Rogue Coast Haste Wet-Hopped Double IPA

Schilling Alexandr (10) and Palmovka (12) Pilsners - And I hear a 13 plato amber beer is coming soon. 

2021, please treat us better. Thanks for reading, and be safe. 

Beer and Music, Music and Beer, 2019 Edition

I wasn't too thrilled with doing a top ten list this year come September, but then something like "Oscar season, but for music!" happened and I feel pretty pretty good about what follows. I go back and forth on my top three, but here's the order as it stands now.



1. Somos - Prison on a Hill: Gorgeous antifa new wave.
2. Elbow - Giants of All Sizes: Aggressive, off-kilter guitars; synth gurgles; strings, 7/4 time signatures; and lyrics to match. “Empires crumble all the time / Pay it no mind / You just happened to witness mine.” Elbow shows no interest in playing it safe and their weirdest, yet most direct, album to date is also their best.
3. Fontaines D.C. - Dogrel: “Dublin in the rain is mine/A pregnant city with a Catholic mind.” The "go go Rimbaud" aesthetic suits these Irish punk rockers, coming through like Mark E. Smith at his most focused.

4. Danny Brown - uknowhatimsaying: Q-Tip isn't the obvious choice to produce this album, but this pairing really does work.
5. Ty Segall - : No guitars, no problem. Segall uses Japanese, Greek, and other stringed instruments to create his tightest psych-rock album yet.

6. Alcest - Spiritual Instinct: The band at their most dark and brooding. Someone needs to add "goth" to the blackgaze sub-genre.
7. DIIV - Deceiver: Heavier than previous efforts, and more economical at 10 songs and 45 minutes.
8. Beth Gibbons, Henryk Górecki, Krzysztof Penderecki - Symphony of Sorrowful Songs: Gibbons is the voice, Górecki the composer, and Penderecki conducts the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra. I can't recall ever placing a purely classical work on a year-end list (shout out to Kronos Quartet!), but this is excellent.
9. Bon Iver - i,i: Justin Vernon's actual voice is quite nice, and here it's not hidden behind auto-tune, processors, and other effects. More, please.
10. Low Life - Downer Edn: It's post-punk, it's coldwave, it's goooooooood!




The best of the rest:

Courtney Barnett - MTV Unplugged Live in Melbourne: Did you know these were still a thing? Well they are, and Barnett's excellent rearrangements are worth a listen.
Kaatayra - No Ruidar da Mata que Mirra: Heterodox melodic black metal from Brazil, with asides into traditional and Portuguese-inflected instrumentation and arrangements. Very good.
Wand - Laughing Matter: There's a lot going on on this album and while I don't like all of it, I like most of it (and I admire all of it).
Thom Yorke - Anima: That I enjoyed this is perhaps the most pleasant musical surprise of 2019.

Cheers to: Sturgill Simpson (Sound & Fury), for keeping country weird; and Lankum (The Livinglong Day), for doing the same with Irish music; Hammered Hulls, for bringing back that harDCore sound.

Best album that I'll never listen to because it hurts too much: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Ghosteen.

Best use of pedal-free tremolo to recreate 1990-era My Bloody Valentine sound: Fleeting Joys - Speeding Away to Someday.

Singles: L'Eppee - Springfield 61; Vampire Weekend - Harmony Hall; Wand - Scarecrow; Schammasch - A Paradigm Of Beauty; Brutus - War; Danny Brown - Dirty Laundry; Weyes Blood - Movies; A.A. Williams - Control; Stormzy - Vossi Bop; Hammered Hulls - Written Words.



Now on to the beers. When I started doing these lists there were 1,500 breweries to choose from. Now there are about 8,000. I know I'm missing some stuff. It's going to keep happening. One thing that makes it easier: I've pretty much given up on double IPAs as a style. Hazy, East Coast, West Coast, it doesn't matter. The combinations of over-hopping and high-gravity just don't do it for me anymore. So it goes. The locals, in no particular order:

Guinness Milk Stout - A 5.something percent milk stout from the people who know a thing or two about stout. Here's a pastryboi you can session?
DC Brau Joint Resolution - The savviest brewery in DC pivoted from a Belgian-style golden ale to a year-round hazy IPA (and later added hard seltzer). Here's one you can drink two of.
Aslin Baby Shark - Here's another hazy IPA you can drink two of.
Black Narrows Wild About It - A lager brewed with corn, and then bretted for an extra dry finish. More please.
Commonwealth and Allagash Toji - These two collaborated on a foeder-aged saison, brewed with dates and yuzu. It was an excellent pre-Thanksgiving meal beer.
Port City German Pils and Tmave - One of these took a Great American Beer Festival Gold Medal. I'll add that 2019's Rauch Marzen was their best version yet.
Silver Branch Glass/Killer Castles - One of the really nice things about 2019 is how many new breweries hit the ground running. Right from the start Silver Branch was making very good beer. Killer is the unfiltered pils, Glass is the easier to find one. You can't go wrong.
Silver Branch Umlaut Love - Or you could drink the Kolsch-style ale.
Precarious Leicht - This also took gold at GABF and I just happened to be maybe 5 miles away from the brewery when the win was announced. I had never heard of them (Williamsburg, VA) before. This 3.9% lager is excellent.
Triple Crossing Pathway Pils - I tried to kill the keg of this at Brookland Pint.
Red Bear/DCBeer Ruby Lager - We did a few collaborations this year, and this one was my favorite. Really well balanced with a pillowy soft water profile.
Right Proper Scenicruiser - It's billed as a biere de garde, but there's grapes, and exotic hops, and it's fermented in a foeder. There's a lot going on here and all of it is good.
Union Schmoke - The second best beer name of the year (thanks, Crispocurrency!) and my favorite smoked beer. More on that over at DCBeer.com soon.




Also, we podcasted about the year that was.

Elsewhere:

OEC Coolship Lager - Ordinem Ecentrici Coctores isn't known for stuff like this, but maybe they should be. Proof that they can stand on their own two without the B. United imports.
Anderson Valley Black Rice Ale - I'm not going to find Asahi Kuronama around, and if I do it won't be fresh. This beer takes me back to what I remember drinking so often in Japan (yes, one is an ale, the other a lager).
Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest, with Bitburger - These are reliably very good.
Casa Agria Stone Fruit in Harmony - It's a saison, it's a fruited sour. Excellent blending going on here.
Fernson Plains Beer - Late into SAVOR I visited this table and hung out drinking light lager for the rest of the night.
Switchback, Flynn on Fire series - This Vermont brewery brought three smoked beers to SAVOR, each helpfully labeled with a "smoke-o-meter." The saison was my favorite, but what a cool thing.

Cheers to 2020, may it be better.