A while back, we brought up the question of what is the future of the off-site craft beer festival. Many of you, as well as folks in the industry, responded with all sorts of ideas as to how to keep these things going.

One that we thought had promise was the themed or specialized off-site festival, though others had mixed feelings on such things. For the most part, we were talking about style-specific events, such as all-lager fests. Well, this past weekend a couple of us trekked up to Denver for a very different kind of specialized festival.

Decibel Magazine’s biennial Metal and Beer Fest made its winter appearance at the Summit, just a block from Coors Field. Featuring 14 metal bands split evenly over two nights, it was a brutally heavy onslaught for those of us who love the many genres. It also featured multiple breweries (plus one meadery) pouring samples of some of their finest beers, some of which were collaborations with the bands on stage.

To make such a sampling festival work, the metal-and-beer ticket was more expensive than the metal-only option, thus providing the participating breweries with plenty of profitable incentive to participate. You could not buy full pints, but some of the collaboration beers that were canned ended up being for sale at the main bar in the venue (admittedly, this is something that will need to be advertised better in the future, as there was no signage up the first night and our friend Alex of Red Mesa just ended up stumbling upon those cans on the second night).

Among the participating breweries, it was no surprise to see Denver’s own TRVE Brewing and Black Sky Brewery, along with other well-known metal-loving breweries such as 3 Floyds (Indiana) and Adroit Theory (Virginia). New (to us) breweries included Magnanimous (Florida), Soundgrowler (Illinois), Little Cottage (Georgia), WarPigs (Indiana), Kings County Brewing Collective (New York), Holy Mountain (Seattle), and Brimming Horn Meadery (Delaware).

The collabs included 3 Floyds’ and Morbikon’s Deaththirst, a cherry barlewyine; WarPigs’ and Agalloch’s Burned Fortress, a rauchbier marzen; Magnanimous’ and The Keening’s Silent Grave, an imperial stout with chocolate, peanut butter, and butterscotch; Magnanimous’ and The Red Chord’s Molasses Through the Vein, an imperial stout with molasses, vanilla, and cinnamon; Soundgrowler’s and Phobocosm’s Everlasting Void, a dark Czech lager; TRVE’s and Khemmis’ Obsidian Crown, a no-frills imperial stout; and Brimming Horn’s and Agalloch’s Scorched Meadows, a huckleberry mead aged in Laphroaig Scotch barrels.

There were also a pair of Dark Lord variants — Marshmallow Handjee and that were basically massive dessert bombs of pure joy. TRVE brewed up a delightful kolsch called Decibrew Vol. 3. Black Sky rocked with 666 Schwarz.

The only regrets were missing out on some of the Adroit Theory beers (they went fast on night two), though the Harbinger DIPA was tremendous, and not getting to the Kill Screen DIPA from Little Cottage before it ran out.

Otherwise, it was a fairly well-organized fest, with quick entry being a major plus as the temperature dropped sharply in Denver. The bands were tremendous, with The Red Chord, Morbikon, and Cephalic Carnage standing out on Friday, while Primitive Man, Midnight, and headliners Agalloch dominated Saturday. Also, it was nice to see how much less expensive Denver can be when one is not there for the Great American Beer Festival (affordable hotel rooms exist!).

We are not saying that local festivals need to be created in this style with metal bands and breweries, though we would not certainly not object. It just showed us that maybe if you do combine a music festival with a beer festival, it really can work. The bands had fun collaborating on beers, as they told us throughout both nights, and the brewery staff members on site certainly seemed to be enjoying the raucous tunes. Maybe this is the type of thing local music promoters and the members of the New Mexico Brewers Guild could work on creating in the future, only mix around the genres since we are aware that some of you weirdos don’t like metal.

For those of us who do like metal with our beer fests, well, we can wait until this event returns to Denver in 2024, or hop over to Philadelphia for the spring edition.

Hails!

— Stoutmeister