Adem Tepedelen, author of The Brewtal Truth Guide to Extreme Beers
Interview by Megan Cole
Beer and music go together like peanut butter and jelly. It’s difficult to have one with out the other. They have overlapped in more ways than just a guitarist pounding a pint on stage during a show. Music and beer writer Adem Tepedelen knows the ways the two have come together better than anyone, and recently brought his knowledge of craft beer and metal together in his book The Brewtal Truth Guide to Extreme Beers: An All-Excess Pass to Brewings Outer Limits, published by Lyons Press.
How did you find yourself writing a beer column for Decibel Magazine, an extreme music magazine?
It was kind of a collision of two worlds. At that point I had freelanced for several years, since 2002 or 2003. I was writing about food, wine and beer; and at the same time I was writing about metal. You could say I had expertise in both areas. In late 2008 I won an award for my beer writing, the Michael Jackson Beer Journalism Award, which is named after a famous beer writer, not the King of Pop. I happened to mention the award to the editor at Decibel and he had no idea that I wrote about beer. I said at that point, “What about doing a one-time beer and metal feature in Decibel,” and he came back and said, “Why don’t we just do a colum?” He never gave me any direction and my idea at the beginning was to do a beer column in Decibel focused on beer, but the more I just wrote about beer there was actual crossover in the metal world. I wasn’t just writing a beer column, I was writing about a brewer, like Todd Haug of Surly Brewing, who is the guitarist in the thrash metal band Powermad, so as I went I found this wide world opening up where there were brewers that loved metal and then there were metalheads who loved great craft beer.
When did you start working on the book?
As soon as I signed my deal in December 2012, I started writing. Well, I started working on it. One of the first things I had to do was get the beer I wanted to write about. I had put together a list, so I contacted dozens of breweries asking if they would send me samples. There was a lot of prep work that went into the book before I ever started writing it. It’s also worth noting that my contract required I complete the manuscript in just four months. So I had my work cut out for me.
What was the research process like? Did you have a lot of it already done because of writing the columns?
This book is actually completely new material. Nothing in it appeared in Decibel. I wanted to partner with Decibel on this project because I wanted this to be a Brewtal Truth book that Decibel readers who knew my column might be interested in. It was definitely geared toward the Decibel crowd, but I hoped that, as a craft beer book, it would also appeal to anyone interested in big, crazy beers. As for the research process, it was just tracking down beers that fit the parameters I established for extreme beers. This is a really subjective thing. My thought was, though, that people who might be interested in this book would already be craft beer drinkers, so I based my definition of extreme on what the average craft beer drinker might consider extreme. I also wanted to have some fun with it, so some of my categories and definitions aren’t super serious. I mean, I have a whole chapter dedicated to beers with devil names!
How much beer did you have to drink for “research?”
I guess the short answer is a lot! Most breweries sent at least two bottles of each beer that I included in the book and I only needed one in most instances. I turned in my manuscript in April and was still drinking beer leftover from writing the book in July. Keep in mind that most beers in the book are high ABV brews. I got used to drinking these kinds of beers and now “small” beers seem a little weak. Needless to say, the writing of the book was a blur for a number of reasons.
Were you ever surprised how much overlap there actually was between craft beer and metal?
Well, when I first started writing my column in Decibel I think I would have told you that there was no connection or overlap. It was only after I wrote the column for a few years that I started to see it. I think the crossover has occurred organically as the two worlds have realized there is mutual admiration and interest. People ask me why not indie rock and craft beer or, say, bluegrass and craft beer? Well, I’m not going to suggest that every brewery in North America is run by metal-loving dudes (or women), but metalheads are a unique tribe and they tend to appreciate things that are aesthetically boundary pushing. So, let’s say you have a brewery that puts metal-looking imagery on its beer labels, or gives them metal names, then this kind of thing draws the attention of the metal crowd. I see more and more of that happening now. It’s been pretty cool to see these connections being made. Craft beer is still fringe, and metal has always been fringe, so there’s some natural kinship there.
How do you think the access to obscure and maybe more fringe music can be compared to how people are getting into craft beer?
I was thinking about how things are different today compared to, let’s take the Judas Priest fan documentary Heavy Metal Parking Lot. There were really stoked dudes in the parking lot, drinking, likely beer, and they love their beer, but they didn’t have access to craft beer like they do today. Given the options I like to think of people who are into metal and extreme styles of music as discerning on some level; they didn’t get to listening to Cannibal Corpse by accident, they really had to search it out, and it’s the same thing with craft beer. You don’t typically fall into drinking a really hoppy IPA, you kind of get there via a journey of some sort. That is part of what my book is about. These are beers that you discover when you are well on your way to appreciating good beer, and craft beer, like one might if you find your way to a more challenging band like Pig Destroyer after a pop phase as a child, and then discover a heavy band, and then found their way to Pig Destroyer after Black Sabbath and Pantera. Beer on its own is kind of a gateway to craft beer and extreme craft beers down the line.
Even though craft beer is popular right now, do you think it will replace Molson in customer’s minds?
There will always be a market for cheap beer and, quite honestly, as much as it seems like craft beer is everywhere now, it’s still a small part of the big pie. In the same way that all the fringe music is still part of the big music pie. None of these bands like, for example, the bands that were part of the CBC’s Canadian Band Beers series, they are still indie punk and fringe bands that are never going to sell a million records, like Driftwood Brewing or Townsite Brewing, they are never going to be the size or scope of a Molson or Labatt.
Beer and music obviously come together in the creation and enjoyment of music, but how does craft beer and music go together?
It’s people who aren’t satisfied with the mainstream. They know what everyone else is doing or listening to or drinking and they don’t just automatically accept that. They look for what else is out there and find things that do have more substance to them. I like to think of a good craft beer as something that has a lot of flavour; that should be the hallmark of a good craft beer. In the same way that an interesting indie band or extreme metal band should have a few more layers in one way or another than typical mainstream music that is meant to be a bit vapid or mindless, you might say.
Bands seem to have jumped on the craft beer band wagon and are even getting involved in the names and flavours of beers. What do you think of the band beer trend?
This is very subjective, but I appreciate any and all, for the most part. I tried all the Canadian Band Beers and I thought it was fantastic and very clever, and it also seemed like the bands and consumers embraced it. I like it when bands actually get involved in the formulation of whatever beer they are attaching their name to in a thoughtful way. The band Clutch did a beer with New Belgium in their sour series, and they were kind of new to sours and were kind of turned on to sours by the New Belgium people, and they were involved in the figuring out of the sour beer and had input in it. I think that is cool when the band can say what they like and what reflects what they do. I think that is neat. I also like when a brewer is inspired by a band, like there is a small brewery in Denver called Trve (True) and the guy who owns it is a serious metalhead, and all of his beers have some kind of metal song name, and a lot of them are fairly obscure. I don’t know if he tastes the beer and says, “This reminds me of Judas Priest,” or whatever, but I think that is kind of interesting, too.
The Brewtal Truth Guide to Extreme Beers: An All-Excess Pass to Brewing’s Outer Limits is available now through Lyons Press.
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