Mike Supina enjoys some late-night Dragon’s Milk Stout
We recently asked Mike Supina, guitarist for melodic hardcore ass-kickers A Wilhelm Scream, to name five of his favourite craft beers. After some careful thought, here’s what he came up with:
Octoberfest, Samuel Adams (Boston, MA)
My all-time favourite beer is Samuel Adams’ Octoberfest. I look forward to it every year, and I remember one year they changed the graphics on the bottle. So I thought to myself, “New look, cool.” Got it and drank it and it tasted different. Completely different. Well, not completely different, but very different from what I remembered. I thought it was a bad batch. So, I got another six-pack from a different location, tried it, and same thing. It tasted different. I thought to myself, “Well, that’s weird, maybe there’s just bad batches going around.” So I went to a third store, got a six-pack and tried it. Now, finally I’m like, “Fuck, okay, there’s something different with this.” So, as a genuinely concerned consumer of Samuel Adams, I emailed and asked them if they had changed the recipe, since they had changed the graphics… and I got a response. But at the time I was thinking, “You know, I’ll write them, hell, maybe they’ll send me a free case or something.” But, anyway, they wrote me back in like an hour, saying, “Sorry, no we haven’t changed the recipe; we did change the graphics, if you have any more questions, blah, blah, blah.” But it’s funny because the next year it tasted exactly how I remembered it, and it has ever since.
Hopslam IPA, Bell’s Brewery (Kalamazoo, MI)
It’s really hard to come by, but when you can find it, it’s great. Just a really great IPA. Kinda grapefruit and citrus-y notes. And it’s 10 percent, so it fucks you up!
KBS, Founders Brewing (Grand Rapids, MI)
This was formerly called Kentucky Breakfast Stout, and it’s not to be confused with their Breakfast Stout, which is an entirely different beer. This is also really hard to come by, but it’s an incredible stout. Also, it’s 10 or 11 percent. It’s the kind of beer you put in a snifter, and drink at a little cooler than room temperature… yeah, I know, I’m a beer snob. Don’t worry, it’s not as good as PBR! And you can slam these, too, but your night will end a lot sooner than planned!
Dragon’s Milk Stout, New Holland Brewery (Holland, MI)
This is my favourite winter beer, it’s aged in oak barrels, and right now I’m getting into the winter seasonal stuff that’s coming out. It’s a great stout, at 11 percent. It’s similar to Founders’ KBS, and although I never compared the two, this has been my late-night snobbery chill beer. Better at a little cooler than room temperature, too.
Mokah Stout, Southern Tier (Lakewood, NY)
My buddy Nate, who we stayed with in Virginia, turned me onto this next brewery called Southern Tier. We missed our show this one time on the way to crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. The weather was so bad that we couldn’t cross, so we missed the show, but we had a place to stay with Nate. He hooked us up with all of this beer and Cap’n Crunch cereal, and we get there and he’s got a Propagandhi DVD playing on the TV! We’ve stayed with him a few times; super rad dude. He’s also a beer connoisseur. So I told him how much I like craft beer and then he opened up the cabinet of like… the good shit. I mentioned how my father likes craft beer and that’s how I got turned onto it and how I first heard about Southern Tier. And he gave me some and told me to bring it back to my father. Now we can actually get Southern Tier out in Michigan. But, yeah, Southern Tier Mokah Stout is really good. Another one to put in a snifter; it’s a real relaxing drink and it’s like having wine, but when you have a taste for beer.
A Wilhelm Scream‘s most recent album, Partycrasher, is out now on No Idea Records.
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