Adem Tepedelen

BREWTAL TRUTH: Drink This Now!

April 18, 2014

One of the least brewtal beers we included in our Brewtal Truth Guide to Extreme Beers had to have been Shmaltz’s He’Brew Jewbelation Sweet 16. Well, the beer itself was pretty insane—16 hop varieties, 16 types of malt and brewed to 16% ABV—but the pastel-colored label, complete with little dancing unicorns, didn’t accurately represent the…

BREWTAL TRUTH: Drink This Now!

April 11, 2014

Why does Canada’s Frenchiest province, Quebec, love Belgian-style beers so much? Is it the shared language? Is it something in the Quebec palate? Or is it just disdain for anything English in origin? We have no idea, but if we want a killer Belgian brew without going to Belgium, there are plenty of options from…

BREWTAL TRUTH: Drink This Now!

April 4, 2014

We have two beer loves that are in direct contrast to each other: malty German brews and über-hoppy North American brews. These two things have nothing in common taste-wise. They are, of course, brewed with the same ingredients, but the ratios and the particular types of key ingredients used—such as hops, malt and yeast—are dramatically…

It’s MLB Opening Day and Your Team Doesn’t Suck (Yet)!

March 31, 2014

Why does every baseball fan everywhere look forward to opening day of Major League Baseball more than any other day of the season? For some it’s the only day their team isn’t in the cellar (Houston) or languishing in mediocrity (Chicago Cubs) or headed toward another 100-loss season (Seattle). For others it’s the possibility of…

BREWTAL TRUTH: The Next Generation

March 28, 2014

We’ll get the self-congratulatory crap out of the way right up front. We’ve been writing about craft beer in America’s only monthly extreme music magazine since 2009. No one else was writing about beer and metal at the time. So, we’ll go ahead and plant the we-were-there-first flag in that one. But, if you’ve been…

BREWTAL TRUTH: Drink This (or Something Like it) Now!

March 21, 2014

Apologies first off, if you go looking for this specific beer and can’t find it. Consider it an example of the kinds of beers that are subject of this week’s online Brewtal Truth. The topic at hand is “gypsy brewing,” or if you find that term offensive, “itinerant brewing.” Basically, if you’re a brewer, but…

Decibel Hall of Fame Feature Kick-Starts Agnostic Front Reunion

March 19, 2014

There have been many proposed Hall of Fame features that have been derailed by inner-band animosity and grudges, but our recent spotlight on Agnostic Front’s groundbreaking NYC crossover masterpiece, Cause for Alarm, in the March issue, actually brought the five musicians that played on the album back together. Guitarists Vinnie Stigma and Alex Kinon, bassist…

BREWTAL TRUTH: DC Brau and Stillwater Bring Back NATAS

March 14, 2014

Back in the mid ’80s, long before every outdoor structure was skateboard-proofed, a bunch of California skate punks turned the urban landscape into their own skate park. This was the birth of street skating, where everything from concrete walls to empty pools to parking medians were fair game for pulling off some sick move. This…

Dave Witte and Tired Hands Collaborate on Play Fast Beer!

March 7, 2014

It’s hard not to see the irony in drummer Dave Witte—he who has “Play Fast” tattooed across the knuckles of his hands—collaborating with a brewpub called Tired Hands. Witte’s hands, which have pounded on quite an array of extreme albums—from Discordance Axis to Municipal Waste—don’t ever seem to get tired. But Witte put his hands…

BREWTAL TRUTH: Drink This Now!

February 28, 2014

Last week’s Q&A with Exit-13 vocalist Bill Yurkiewicz got us thinking about Belgian beers. Actually, we’re frequently thinking about Belgian beers, but this is a good time of year for drinking the the big, high-ABV ones—and there are plenty of them out there. It also made us consider the “classics” of the beer world, iconic…

BREWTAL TRUTH: Behold The Most Metal Craft Beer Collab Ever

February 21, 2014

Nope that’s not some new super-group featuring Powermad guitarist, Todd Haug, pictured above. OK, yes that’s Haug front and center, but this brootal crew is actually a confab of brewers and an artist who have come together to create a brand new beer called BLAKKR. From left to right we have Michael Berglund, Surly artist-in-residence;…

Talking Good Beers and Grindcore with Bill Yurkiewicz

February 14, 2014

Long before there was a Brewtal Truth column in Decibel or Municipal Waste was celebrating the Art of Partying or Three Floyds was making beers for its favorite metal bands, Bill Yurkiewicz and his grindcore band, Exit-13, were not only drinking amazing beers from around the world, they were writing songs about them. Yurkiewicz, who…

BREWTAL TRUTH: Drink This Now!

February 7, 2014

We had tons of juniper bushes in the area we grew up in Colorado, so the smell of gin was familiar to us long before we ever drank it. We used to squish the berries between our fingers and smell their pungent, spicy odor. Sure, not all gin is heavy on the juniper, but it…

Agnostic Front – “Cause for Alarm”

January 31, 2014

Agnostic Front’s Cause for Alarm is an atypical Hall of Fame induction. Most of the previous 100-plus albums that have graced these pages were created by bands that had a solid core and had been playing together (if not recording together) for years.

BREWTAL TRUTH: Drink This Now…Whatever It Is

January 31, 2014

Anyone who’s sampled more than a few craft beers can attest to the fact that it’s not always clear from the label what’s going to be inside the bottle. Oh sure, it might say something like “Brettanomyces-fermented Belgian quad aged on oak with cherries and bottle conditioned,” but figuring out what that’s going to taste…

Surly Brews Asator Viking IPA For Amon Amarth Show

January 27, 2014

The weather may be brutally cold when Amon Amarth, Enslaved and Skeletonwitch roll into Minneapolis on Saturday, February 8, but there will be a special strong beer, brewed specifically for this event by Surly Brewing, waiting for them. Surly is sponsoring the show at Mill City Nights and head brewer Todd Haug decided to provide…

Original Trouble Drummer Releases Red Howes Beer

January 24, 2014

What’s the connection between craft beer and metal? We hear this question a lot. Well, specifically, we are asked this question a lot since our craft beer book, The Brewtal Truth Guide to Extreme Beers, was published last November. For people who aren’t necessarily into both things, it’s hard to see the commonalities. On the…

BREWTAL TRUTH: Drink This Now!

January 17, 2014

Do not fear the can. The can is a beer drinker’s friend. Especially when the beer is coming all the way from Maui. It protects and helps keep the product inside cool (metal chills faster than glass) and fresh. The folks at Maui Brewing Co. would be foolish to package their product any other way,…

DECIBREW on Tap at TRVE Brewing Co. This Friday!

January 13, 2014

Since our Brewtal Truth column first appeared in Decibel nearly five years ago, it was inevitable that this day would one day come. All we needed was to find the perfect partner, and when we learned about Denver’s TRVE Brewing Co. in 2012, we knew that they were it. So, after many bestial sacrifices, summonings,…

BREWTAL TRUTH: Drink This Now!

January 10, 2014

In our latest Brewtal Truth column in the February issue of Decibel, we queried Magrudergrind guitarist RJ Ober about his job working as a sales manager for Victory Brewing. One of the things he mentioned, which was left out due to space constraints, is the fact that he had the honor of naming the brewery’s…

BREWTAL TRUTH: Drink This Now!

December 20, 2013

As far as we’re concerned, this is imperial (or Russian imperial, if you prefer) stout season. This is when it’s time to bring out the big guns, the sipping beers for those dark, cold winter evenings. Dark weather demands dark beers, and these are some of the blackest out there. It’s a fallacy that all…

BREWTAL TRUTH: Drink This Now!

December 13, 2013

It was as easy to predict as the Seattle Mariners’ annual late-spring implosion: Decibel’s Top 100 Black Metal Albums of All Time caused some consternation amongst black metal fans. Shocking. This is, however, a crowd not hard to provoke. They seem edgy, a little overly serious and prone to interhole-induced fits of rage. Which makes…

BREWTAL TRUTH: The 24 Beers of Xmas

December 6, 2013

OK, I’ll admit up front that this is a total asshole post. It was my intention when I started doing these weekly Brewtal Truth posts to specifically write about beers that are fairly widely distributed in the U.S. and available now. I have made an exception on a couple of occasions, but this one is…

BREWTAL TRUTH: The Brewtal Truth Book Tour!

November 29, 2013

I’m not trying to steal the thunder from next Friday’s announcement of the Decibel Magazine 2014 tour lineup, but there’s another Decibel-related tour that’ll be taking place a little sooner than the new year. OK, this one won’t be as loud or as sweaty as the upcoming Decibel Magazine Tour, and there definitely won’t be…

BREWTAL TRUTH: Drink This Now!

November 22, 2013

If there’s one thing that Germany seems to love it is adherence to tradition. Germans love their metal old-school and their beer made from just four ingredients: water, malt, yeast and hops. Which is the way its been brewed since the Reinheitsgebot (German Beer Purity Law) was established in 1516. So for nearly 500 years…

BREWTAL TRUTH: Drink Real Ale…Or Not

November 15, 2013

We know, we know, this Trooper beer is old news. You’ve seen a bazillion blog posts on every metal website in the internetiverse about it and maybe, if it’s available where you live, you’ve even tried it. It’s an Iron Maiden beer, so of course you have. But it’s actually more than a typical “big-name…

BREWTAL TRUTH: Read This Now!

November 8, 2013

There are all kinds of new products popping out of the woodwork in the Decibel Universe right now. You may have heard of this limited-edition 100th Issue Show: The Movie DVD that’s just arrived at dB HQ. Then there’s the Top 100 Black Metal Albums of All Time special issue that’ll be the perfect holiday…

BREWTAL TRUTH: Hello, Holiday Beers!

November 1, 2013

With Halloween now behind us, we can leave behind the pumpkin beers—is it me, or were there like a thousand of these things this year?—and move on to the big winter warmers. This is a time of year when the darker, heartier and higher ABV beers start to show up. In fact, it wasn’t that…

Venom – “Black Metal”

October 28, 2013

Black Metal’s induction to the Decibel Hall of Fame was inevitable. There’s simply no getting around its influence.

BREWTAL TRUTH: Smashing A Craft Beer Fallacy

October 25, 2013

It’s not even officially “out” (even though you can already download it if you have a digital subscription), but we’re already getting heat via Twitter for our new Brewtal Truth column in issue #110 where we take to task metal bands for flying the flag for Coors Light in their band promo photos. In one…