DRAFT Magazine

By Greg Lalas

Beer and musicians. They just go together, like ebony and ivory, in perfect harmony, as they have for centuries, or even millennia. It’s not hard to imagine some ancient Greek toga-wearing citharede — the original guitar god — drowning some liquid courage before ripping into his first solo of the night. Certainly, Victorian-era lute players tipped back a flagon or two in between sentimental ballads (all the better to deal with the swooning damsels backstage). And any slide guitarist who doesn’t use a beer bottle should be booed off the stage.

Ale has also provided ample inspiration for songwriters, from George Thorogood’s “One Bourbon, One Scotch, and One Beer” to Duke Ellington’s “Black and Tan Fantasy.” (Though, to be honest, I’m not sure the Duke meant that one.)

And, of course, one of the most famous compositions of all time makes no bones about its lager love. “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” isn’t just the greatest time-wasting song every written, but it just might be the most uplifting folk inspirational in history. After all, the singer doesn’t just ask the listeners to take a bottle of beer down from the wall, but also to pass it around, share it with friends, and unabashedly embrace hopped-up camaraderie.

In many ways, beer is music and music is beer. They both get together for festivals. They both can please the body and the soul. They both can lift us to ecstatic heights or commiserate with our sadness.

And for some, like a hopped-up scribe, they provide a nice tidy way to make neat associations between musicians and certain beers. Think of it as a pint-sized version of synesthesia, which is the condition of making odd associations, like giving days specific colors (Wednesday is green, by the way).

Here are some favorite band-beer unions:

Kelly Clarkson : Blue Moon Belgian White — Wildly overproduced, but a kind of summertime guilty pleasure. Your life might not suck without Blue Moon, but you have to admit, at times, its fresh, sparkling, sultry, slightly acidic (the orange slice garnish) nature hits the spot on a hot afternoon in the backyard.

Mötley Crüe : Bürgerbräu Wolnzacher Hell Naturtrüb — One good umlaut deserves another. This German Kellerbier is renowned for its long-lasting multi-finger head — rising like Vince Neil’s teased-up hair, circa 1984 — and its smooth, creamy maltiness mixed with apple and/or banana is exactly the kind of thing that will kickstart your heart again and again.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah : Dos Equis — This one is counterintuitive, because you’d think XX would be reserved for a Latino act like Menudo or that Iglesias kid. You’d probably also think Clap Your Hands would get something cooler, something more hipster in Brooklyn, less happy hour at Applebees. But let’s be honest, CYHSY play happy head-bobbing tunes, as uncomplicated as an insurance salesman. It goes great with a lime.

Jay-Z : Sam Adams — Once ground-breaking, both Jay-Z and Sammy are now ubiquitous and considered more “classic” standbys. They’re old skool, in a newish kind of way. And both of them they don’t really do much of what they used to do. Jay-Z is too busy buying the New Jersey Nets to lay down any raps, and Jim Koch is too busy designing new glassware and snuffling hops for the cameras to push the envelope anymore.

U2 : Westmalle Trappist Tripel — Bono and the boys have never been explicitly hard-hitting. Their music, even going back to “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” has always had a melodic sweetness that can seem to file down its teeth. But, like the honeyed but potent Westmalle, it’s more complex than at first taste. Plus, there are the Christian undertones. You just know the monks bounce around to “Beautiful Day” when their brewing.

Aerosmith : St. Pauli Girl — There was a time when Aerosmith rocked with their cocks out, as Britney Spears famously uttered recently. That was back in the “Toys in the Attic” and “Dude Looks Like a Lady” days, which is around the same time we used to think St. Pauli was the nectar of the beer gods (mainly because it was German and available in suburb grocery stores). Then Steven Tyler had a daughter and the band went limp with “Crazy” and annoying soundtrack songs. And we got tired of imported swill.

Motörhead : Schloss Eggenberg’s Samichlaus — More umlauts! Fitting, because the loudest band in the world’s Germanic nod links it nicely to the Austrian doppelbock Samichlaus, which is supposedly the strongest lager in the world, at 14% ABV. Good thing, then, especially for the 63-year-old mutton-chopped, mole-dappled Lemmy, that the big black bottles are available only once a year, around Christmastime (the word Samichlaus means Santa Claus).

Coldplay : Lagunitas IPA — If you’re like me, you like Chris Martin & Co. You also like Lagunitas. But don’t you wish both of them were better than they are? Put on “A Rush of Blood to the Head” or take a first sip of an IPA pint, and you’re bound to say to yourself, “Eh. It’s good. But what’s all the fuss?”

Nickelback : Michelob Ultra — They say it’s rock and roll; we call it carbonated urine.

Greg Lalas’s old band Hamilton (RIP) could fairly be described as rock’s Tremont Ale—based in Boston, never sold many units but delivered a good product and had a blast while doing it.