Tag: 220407

Brotherly love

Kevin and Michael Bacon perform in Plymouth

The Bacon Brothers are a prolific band — 11 studio albums since forming in the late ’90s, a live record and a hits collection — but there’s really not a Bacon Brothers sound. Kevin Bacon, who writes most of the band’s lyrics, attributes this to their being lifetime students at the College of Musical Knowledge.

“We’ ve lived long enough to have absorbed a lot of different … styles that have continued to grow through the years,” the actor and musician said in a recent joint interview with his brother Michael, a composer. When writing, he said, “We’re thinking about the way the song could sound, as opposed to thinking of a way to fit the song into the Bacon Brothers.”

Thus, there’s a world of difference between the Opry-ready “Picker” and “British Invasion,” which sounds plucked from a 1964 episode of Shindig. Both are from 2020’s The Way We Love, a record that is musically diverse but is also a concept record about love in its many forms.

“Our concept is usually do we have enough songs that we really like to make a 10- or 11-song record,” Michael said.

“Most bands have a certain kind of consistency, but it’s just not what we do,” Kevin added.

One of the best tracks on the new disc “Corona Song,” a tribute to their parents that’s both sweet and humorous; Kevin sings about missing them, while also being grateful they aren’t around to see the pandemic’s dumber moments.

“People get awards and they’ll say, ‘I know my dad’s up there watching, and he would be so happy for me’ — but there’s got to be other times,” he said. “Nobody ever says, ‘I’m so glad my dad’s not up there watching me as I get hauled off to jail.’”

After a handful of one-off gigs over the past two years, The Bacon Brothers are at last back on the road with a tour that stops at Plymouth’s Flying Monkey on April 14. The show will span their catalog and offer a few new selections.

“We have a really nice five-song EP coming out we’re really excited about,” Michael said. “Everything’s sort of falling into place again for us, which is a great feeling.”

One of their few appearances was Sept. 11, 2021, where they performed the moving remembrance song “Unhappy Birthday” in front of New York City’s Freedom Tower.

“Kevin and I both spent more of our lives in New York than out of New York, and that was a special experience,” Michael said. Kevin wrote it at the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks. “I think it’s the best 9/11 song, and it’s also eminently updatable. Because we’re always living with that.”

During lockdown, Kevin and wife Kyra Sedgwick had a novel way of maintaining harmony in their three-decade-plus marriage. They’d each retreat to separate areas of their Connecticut home, meeting around noon and again at day’s end.

“It’s a very high-class problem when you have enough rooms in your house that you can go off and be in your own space, come back together for lunch and then say goodbye until cocktail hour,” Kevin said.

Michael stays busy with his film scoring business, and he continues to provide the music for Henry Louis Gates’ series Finding Your Roots, which he’s done for 15 years — including a 2012 episode where his brother and wife learned they were distant cousins.

“It’s a dream job, I’m very lucky to have it,” he said. “It’s an incredible show.”

On the segment where Kevin and Kyra discovered their genealogical connection, the two also learned about a history of abolitionism in their family — along with an opposing fact.

“They also found out that we had a slave owner, and what was shocking to me is he was a Quaker,” Kevin said. “We’d always thought of the Quakers as leaning towards abolition [and] an understanding of the horror of slavery.”

Kevin’s busy acting career continues apace.

“I just finished up Season 3 of City on a Hill, which is on Showtime,” he said. “I think we’re going to be on in June, although I’m not exactly sure of the date. I did a film with Kyra in Rhode Island [Space Oddity] that’s hopefully coming out soon. It has a nice New England angle.”

The Bacon Brothers
When: Thursday, April 14, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Flying Monkey Movie House & Performance Center, 39 S. Main St., Plymouth
Tickets: $65 and $69 at flyingmonkeynh.com

Featured photo: Michael and Kevin Bacon. Photo credit Charles Chessler.

The Music Roundup 22/04/07

Local music news & events

• Heartfelt: Fresh from winning a Grammy for the 2021 collection, Bela Fleck brings his My Bluegrass Heart album to the Capital City. The banjo master was joined by a who’s who of roots music on the effort, including mandolinists Sam Bush, Sierra Hull and Chris Thile; fiddlers Michael Cleveland and Stuart Duncan, fellow genre-hopper Edgar Meyer on bass, and guitarists Bryan Sutton and Molly Tuttle. Thursday, April 7, 7:30 p.m., Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 S. Main St., Concord, tickets $39 to $69 at ccanh.com.

• Funkytown: Parliament-Funkadelic offshoot Danny Bedrosian & Secret Army plays a downtown Manchester show, with support from Jabbawaukee and Married Iguana. Bedrosian led the massive Super Motha Child as a teenager before joining P-Funk. Secret Army is a three-piece, focused on tighter grooves, “getting a lot of sound out of just a few people,” the Lawrence, Mass., native once explained. Friday, April 8, 8 p.m., Shaskeen Pub, 909 Elm St., Manchester, $15 at the door and the show is 21+.

• Brew-to-do: A Nashua nano-brewery celebrates its sixth anniversary with an afternoon of music featuring local favorite Charlie Chronopoulos, preceded by a set from Dan Carter. Chronopoulos released the stark Chesty Rollins’ Dead End a couple of years ago. A “Northern rock and soul” record that observed the daily life struggles he sees in his home state, it was also a reflection of his choice to pursue an artist’s life there. Saturday, April 9, 1 p.m., Millyard Brewery, 25 E. Otterson St., Nashua, millyardbrewery.com.

• Momentous: Covid-delayed since late January, Mindset X finally marks 18 years as a band and an upcoming album at a hometown show. The new record’s first single, “For The Love Of War,” dropped earlier this year, the product of the prog-rockers’ first studio sessions with new guitarist Lucian Davidson. It’s a hefty, toothsome number that recalls early Black Sabbath and proto Metallica. Saturday, April 9, 8 p.m., Angel City Music Hall, 179 Elm St., Manchester, $10 at the door, 21+, more at angelcitymusichall.com.

• Tale teller: Though his songs are a joy, a big part of a Todd Snider show is his raconteur side. In the autobiography I Never Met A Story I Didn’t Like, he remarks on the ease of playing country songs. “You just strum around the ‘Johnny B. Goode’ chords until you get to the part where everybody stops and the singer yells the chorus, which is usually a slogan of some kind, like ‘ain’t goin’ down ’til the sun comes up.’” Wednesday, April 13, 7 p.m., The Music Hall, 28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth, $30 and $32 at themusichall.org.

Morbius (PG-13)

Morbius (PG-13)

A genius scientist who is slowly dying from a genetic disorder accidentally turns himself into a vampire in the Marvel-comics-based Morbius, which feels like “what if Venom but thoroughly charmless.”

This is the Sony wing of the Marvel universe, not the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but, as end-credit scenes remind us, those universes are now in conversation with each other. Which is my way of saying stay for the end-credit scenes, I guess, if you’re into this enough to see it in a theater.

Renowned scientist Dr. Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) creates a serum from vampire bat DNA to combat a genetic disease that has left him and his lifelong best friend Lucien (Matt Smith), whom he affectionately calls Milo, weak, in constant pain and in daily need of blood transfusions. Using himself as a human trial, Michael does see physical improvements to his disease — suddenly becoming ripped seems to play a big part in gaining superpowers — but only after he has a little flip-out session where he drains the blood from all the crewmembers on the boat where he had been running his experiments. The only survivor from the boat is Michael’s longtime friend and professional partner Dr. Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona).

Yes, she is a love interest; no, the characters don’t have any real chemistry. But then nobody really has any chemistry with anybody in this movie, so this isn’t just a case of another comic book movie not knowing how to do romance.

As the movie reassures us a couple of times, the guys on the boat were all jerky mercenary types, who cares about them. But then Good People start being exsanguinated and investigators, Agents Stroud (Tyrese Gibson) and Rodriguez (Al Madrigal), are on the hunt for Morbius, who is himself desperate to find out how to either reverse or control the more kill-y parts of his “cure.”

For Lucien, however, becoming a bloodthirsty vampire is a fair trade for getting abs and being able to walk without crutches. Since he has bankrolled Morbius’ experiments, he feels he’s owed some vampire juice and injects himself in spite of Morbius’ warnings because of course he does. Though Morbius doesn’t totally hate his new powers, he tends to think of his new state mostly as a curse that he is willing to die to lift. But he also realizes he is the only person who can control his old friend who plans to have way more “fun” with his superstrength and vampire qualities.

The movie also drags Jared Harris into this mess as an older mentor to both men, but kind of forgets to do anything useful with him. I feel like that approach to this one character sort of typifies the movie overall; this movie has the basics of its form (genius with a sad backstory, long simmer not-quite-romance, new Great Powers he has to learn to use with Great Responsibility, opponent who uses the same powers for the Wrong Reasons, etc.) but Morbius has absolutely no novelty or liveliness to it. This movie is filled with so much bat imagery and booming bass score you think you’re in some kind of knock-off Batman. But it isn’t actually dark, tonally, for as darkly lit as it is and how dark and moody it thinks it is. It also isn’t the bouncy MCU or the Deadpool-ish, er, Deadpool movies or the goofy but watchable mess that is Venom. It just flaps about, so much gasping cartoon fish on a dock — so, like, without even the pathos that would be involved if we believed it was a real live fish.

Leto in Emo Jesus cosplay is just not a compelling character, not as a villain, not as a hero/dark hero/anti-hero whatever he’s supposed to be. Matt Smith is never not distractingly goofy. Arjona’s Martine doesn’t really get more personality depth than “girl character.”

Much like with Venom, Morbius and its canon are beyond the fringes of my Marvel knowledge and so I went in with zero expectations. But somehow it was still a letdown. C- I guess, but I could probably be convinced into D territory….

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, some frightening images and brief strong language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Daniel Espinosa with a screenplay by Matt Sazama & Burk Sharpless, Morbius is an hour and 44 minutes long and distributed by Columbia.

Featured photo: Morbius.

Heartbreak, by Florence Williams

Heartbreak, by Florence Williams (W.W. Norton & Co., 279 pages)

Like termites and prairie voles, human beings seem made for monogamy or, to be precise, “pair-bonding.” We are among the 2 to 10 percent of animals who organize their lives in pairs, even if there is some occasional straying involved. (Even more remarkably, about 90 percent of birds have lifelong mates.)

But bereavement happens, either in death or divorce, and as the Irish rock band The Script told us, when a heart breaks, it don’t break even. That was the experience of journalist Florence Williams, whose 2017 book The Nature Fix explored why being outdoors makes us happier and healthier. Her new book is a “personal and scientific journey” into why breakups hurt so much, and while she’s primarily talking about divorce, the science also applies to grief over the death of a loved one.

Between 10 and 15 percent of divorced and bereaved people experience a debilitating inability to get past their heartbreak, a condition known as bereavement disorder or complicated grief. Williams doesn’t put herself into that category, but she was devastated when her husband of 25 years announced that he was moving out to find his soulmate when she was 50.

While she was able to function well enough, taking care of her children and continuing her work, she was shocked at the depth of her pain. She stopped eating and lost 20 pounds. “I felt power-washed by sadness and anxiety. I looked like a stray animal who was trying to paw her way out of a kill-shelter,” she writes.

Trying to understand why it was so difficult for her to recover, Williams began doing research, interviewing therapists and researchers who study love and loss. She learned that love is as much of a survival drive as it is an emotion, and that stress hormones increase even when monogamous partners are separated for a short time. When a longtime partner vanishes forever, the loss kindles ancient and evolutionary responses: the loss of safety and inclusion that are necessary for our well-being, the loss of connection to extended family, the loss of resources.

Having a stable relationship is even integral to our physical health: “Scores of robust studies across different cultures have shown that married people live longer, experience fewer cancers, strokes, and heart attacks, are more likely to survive serious illnesses, and are less likely to be depressed and overweight.”

Learning all this, of course, made Williams feel even worse. (“I was like, Please stop talking,” she wrote.) So she went to therapy. She gave lots of speeches. She accepted the invitation of a scientist — a divorced friend of a friend — to make out after a party under a cottonwood tree.

Here, Williams is able to show off that she is not just an able investigator and reporter, but an elegant wordsmith. She writes of that encounter with the scientist: “My hard little heart hiccuped and started to soften, along with everything else.”

Unfortunately, Williams’ first post-divorce swim in the dating pool didn’t end well, for deeply uncomfortable reasons, and her continued contact with this man may cause the reader to question her judgment. So, too, her inability to keep up with small things in the aftermath of her husband’s leaving. (She drove for months with an expired car registration, she admits.)

But an even harder reality arrives when Williams’ continued weight loss is finally diagnosed as Type 1 diabetes, which is most commonly diagnosed in children. She learned that high levels of cortisol can affect the production and regulation of insulin, and inflammation markers rise with sustained stress. One researcher told her of the “cellular carnage” of heartbreak, “This is one of the hidden landmines of human existence.”

At this point, the narrative becomes a confluence of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and Williams’ own The Nature Fix. She resolutely sets out to heal her heart before her heartbreak kills her, on a wilderness trip in search of awe. This wasn’t just an emotional experiment, but a scientific one: She had her blood drawn before and after the trip to see if her health measures had improved.

Williams set out looking for prescriptions to easily fix her broken heart; readers who go to this book looking for the same might be disappointed. There’s no broken-heart pill; that gold mine still awaits anyone who might invent it, and even her experiments with psychedelic drugs didn’t seem to help.

But Williams’ journey is interesting and her research solid, and anyone suffering from a heartbreak of their own might benefit from her story. Just stay away from any scientist named Ennis who wants to kiss you under a cottonwood tree. B+

Book Notes

It’s probably no surprise that a memoir released in November was near the top of the charts on Amazon last week.

The author: actor Will Smith (assisted by a co-author, Mark Manson). Last year, Oprah Winfrey called it “the best memoir I’ve ever read,” and as everyone knows, she reads a lot. I read the opening when it first came out, but just re-read the first chapter in a new light, after Will’s assault of comedian Chris Rock at the Academy Awards.

The opening sentences of Chapter 1: “I’ve always thought of myself as a coward. Most of my memories of my childhood involve me being afraid in some way — afraid of other kids, afraid of being hurt or embarrassed, afraid of being seen as weak.” The memoir, Will, is from Penguin Press, 432 pages.

Not taking a side here, but Chris Rock has written a book, too. It came out in 1997, and Winfrey didn’t say a word, although the first page is literally a bit about her leaving a message on his answering machine declining to feature it in her book club. Rock This! is from Hyperion, 224 pages, and also in paperback.

Meanwhile, there’s a new book out about the Academy Awards that necessarily omits the most interesting thing that’s happened in years, as it was published in February. Best Pick (Rowman & Littlefield, 332 pages) has three authors: John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky. They take us on a history of Oscars beginning in the 1920s, with close-ups of the best pictures and the authors weighing in on whether the Oscar was deserved. Looks like a winner.

If you care nothing about film and would rather be outdoors, you might be interested in Riverman, An American Odyssey (Deckle Edge, 272 pages) by Ben McGrath. It’s about the life of Dick Conant, a folk hero who traversed the country’s rivers alone in a canoe before disappearing in North Carolina while he was on his way from New York to Florida. McGrath has written about Conant before in The New Yorker; he expounds on those stories to fill in the details of Conant’s life, if not his death, which remains a mystery.

Book Events

Author events

• MAGGIE SHIPSTEAD Author presents The Great Circle. Virtual event hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Wed., April 13, 6 p.m. Registration required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

• EMMA LOEWE Author presents Return to Nature: The New Science of How Natural Landscapes Restore Us, in conversation with author Hannah Fries. Virtual event hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Wed., April 13, 7 p.m. Registration is required. Held via Zoom. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

• MARIE BOSTWICK Author presents her new book The Restoration of Celia Fairchild. Bookery, 844 Elm St., Manchester. Fri., April 15, 5:30 p.m. Visit bookerymht.com or call 836-6600.

• ANNE HILLERMAN Author presents The Sacred Bridge. Virtual event hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Tues., April 19, 7 p.m. Held via Zoom. Registration is required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

• BRANDON K. GAUTHIER Author presents Before Evil: Young Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, and Kim. Gibson’s Bookstore, 45 S. Main St., Concord. Wed., April 27, 6:30 p.m. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

Poetry

• REBECCA KAISER Poet presents Girl as Birch. Virtual event hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Mon., April 11, 7 p.m. Held via Zoom. Registration is required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562.

• DOWN CELLAR POETRY SALON Poetry event series presented by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Monthly. First Sunday. Visit poetrysocietynh.wordpress.com.

Writers groups

• MERRIMACK VALLEY WRITERS’ GROUP All published and unpublished local writers who are interested in sharing their work with other writers and giving and receiving constructive feedback are invited to join. The group meets regularly; the next meeting is scheduled for Tues., April 5, from 5 to 7:15 p.m., and will be held virtually over WebEx Meetings. To reserve your spot, email [email protected].

Writer submissions

• UNDER THE MADNESS Magazine designed and managed by an editorial board of New Hampshire teens under the mentorship of New Hampshire State Poet Laureate Alexandria Peary. features creative writing by teens ages 13 to 19 from all over the world, including poetry and short fiction and creative nonfiction. Published monthly. Submissions must be written in or translated into English and must be previously unpublished. Visit underthemadnessmagazine.com for full submission guidelines.

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. 844 Elm St., Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

• GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email [email protected] or visit goffstownlibrary.com

• NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email [email protected] or visit nashualibrary.org.

Album Reviews 22/04/07

Jizzy Pearl’s Love Hate, Hell CA (Golden Robot Records)

I must have missed when this Hollywood hard rock band was making waves in Europe and elsewhere, like, apparently in 1990 they won Record Of The Year in readers’ polls put forth by magazines Kerrang and Metal Hammer. That of course doesn’t bode well for the here and now, this electronic zeitgeist wherein every song seems to have a trip-hop part, a noise part, a Mario Bros. soundtrack part, and then everyone goes back to not knowing the band even exists. OK, I’m riffing, but I’m so far behind on this column you’ll just have to deal, and whatever, we’re talking about a street-metal band that still sounds like Skid Row (anyone remember them? Anyone?) as we hear in album opener “One Hot Minute.” These guys are aware that Greta Van Fleet are huge right now, solely on the strength of ripping off 50-year-old Led Zeppelin songs, so they’ve “graced” us with “Acid Babe,” a vaguely “Black Dog” joint that would have fit on Zep’s Physical Graffiti LP, which still remains the most celebrated album of phoned-in swill in history. Fine for what it is, this CD would make a fine drink coaster if it isn’t your thing. B+

Chelsea Jade, Soft Spot (Carpark Records)

Over to the bloop-bling side of things, we find this South African-born singer-songwriter and record producer, who’s now based in Los Angeles, making yet more tuneage for the ritzier fashion shops at the local mall. Like I talk about in this week’s other review, it doesn’t take a lot of detective work to figure out the current zeitgeist, one born of now-decades of basically no musical education in public schools, which has basically left most younger listeners tilting their heads quizzically at the goings-on in the golden age of electronic music and just accepting the vibe as worthwhile. There’s nothing disagreeable here, don’t get me wrong; I appreciate the power of Jade’s wispy voice. But there’s nothing fascinating either, just subdued reggaeton and snap-dance, its intensity set to almost-none, and of course a lot of Billie Eilish-style stopping and starting, which is already well past its sell-by date. B

PLAYLIST

• On April 8 you will see a plethora of new albums in your Spotify, and now it can henceforth never be said that I’ve never used the word “plethora” in this award-winning column, please make a note of it. The summer draws closer, folks, it draws, and so the folks at the big record companies are gearing up for the big summer push, releasing new albums you can listen to while knowing you are completely safe from Covid, which is, as we speak, holding a national conference on what sort of insane mutation it’ll take so that the winter months are pretty much like the last 20 minutes of the film Contagion, I can hardly wait. But in the meantime, we have albums for your pleasure, if not for the aesthetic sense of any rational person, and so we will start with former relevant person Jack White, whose appetite for Big Macs rivals only that of the Hamburglar, who may actually be related to him as far as this reporter knows. Fear Of The Dawn is his new album, and I was rightly surprised to find that the title track is the most awesome tune I’ve heard from him since back when he was relevant and not a Hamburglar. It’s a buzzing mixture of Big Black no-wave and the 1960s acid-rock vibe of Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky,” I’m not kidding, you should check this out. If any Jack White song sounded like it really, really belonged on the soundtrack to one of those sequels to The Purge, it’s this one. It’s very cool, and if White were here in front of me right now I’d give him a Wendy’s Baconator as a richly deserved reward.

• After the death of best drummer of all time Neil Peart, the progressive-rock trio Rush was pretty much done. But there are still two guys left, one of whom is the band’s original guitarist, Alex Lifeson, who will release a new self-titled album with the band Envy Of None, a quartet that also features Coney Hatch’s Andy Curran, Alfio Annibalini and Maiah Wynne. Whatever, there are rumors of a “Rush reunion,” which would be like a Wright brothers reunion with just the two guys who ran out of way during the first plane’s takeoff at Kitty Hawk, but they could probably hire one of those guys who plays drums to Rush songs on YouTube; I mean after all, that’s how Journey ended up hiring their Steve Perry-soundalike singer, from some online video. But anyway, gang, sorry, I digress, let’s just go to the internet and listen to the first single from this silly album, “Look Inside.” Hm, it’s kind of noise-rock-ish, but there’s a girl humming something or other, so it sounds a lot like early M83, except kind of metallic. I’ll let this one pass, it’s acceptable.

• Canadian dude Orville Peck is sort of like the Deadmau5 of cowboy music, like, he wears a crazy fringed mask that he never takes off, so no one knows what he looks like. In fact, all Wikipedia knows is that he was “born in the Southern Hemisphere” (actually it’s safe to say that in reality he’s Daniel Pitout, drummer of the Canadian punk band Nü Sensae, because that’s the person who owns his songs according to ASCAP, and plus he has the same tattoos), but who cares, his new LP Bronco is coming out this week, led by the single “Daytona Sand,” a pretty hilarious song that’s like Elvis meets the Lone Ranger, you should download it or something.

• Lastly, we’ll do the new Calexico album, El Mirador, because when isn’t there a new Calexico album? The title track starts with an ambitious-enough cha-cha rhythm but then turns into the usual Yo La Tengo oatmeal; I’m not impressed.

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Have a kolsch

It just tastes like beer

“I thought it was time to shake things up,” my friend said as he walked back onto the patio somehow hanging on and balancing several hefty, frozen steins full of borderline overflowing suds.

“I just asked for something light and crisp — and really good,” he said.

This instance occurred during a gloriously sunny afternoon this past September, just a perfect day for relaxing with a few beers and some friends. We’d had a couple big IPAs and frankly, he was right, it was time to shake things up.

Lifting the stein with some trouble, I took my first sip. It was certainly light and crisp, but it was also quite flavorful. A light golden pour, the brew had a dry, extremely refreshing finish with minimal bitterness. This beer was begging for mouthfuls, not just little sips. It was incredibly drinkable.

Sure, some of it was the bracing, welcome change from a super-hoppy IPA to something much, much lighter, but it was also just a tremendous reminder that sometimes there’s nothing more pleasing than drinking a beer that tastes like a beer.

On the way out, we asked the bartender about the beer style and determined it was a local, craft-brewed kolsch.

I’ve written about Pilsners before and have always kind of pretended Pilsners and kolsches are the same thing, and while they’re similar they’re not the same. Pilsners tend to be a little more hoppy, a little more bitter. Kolsches tend to be even lower in ABV but they still feature plenty of flavor.

Craftbeer.com tells me the kolsch is technically a hybrid style of beer that marries elements of ale and lager production. Craftbeer.com also tells me the style “pairs best with bratwurst, nutty cheeses, and even lighter desserts like apricot cake,” and while I’m sure that’s on point, I think it pairs best with sitting outside on a warm, sunny day and a giant, frozen stein.

This is a style you can drink any time of the year but I think it’s best to get it onto your radar now, because I suspect you’ll be drinking it at cookouts and at the beach all summer long.

The reality is the kolsch is particularly versatile: it goes well with just about any food and any circumstance.

New Hampshire craft brewers haven’t ignored the style, which is great news for beer enthusiasts.

I loved the Herkules by Schilling Beer Co. and the Henniker Kolsch Style Ale by Henniker Brewing Co. is another wonderful rendition of the style. Perpetual Grüven by Great Rhythm Brewing in Portsmouth is terrific as well, as is Paradise Valley by Granite Roots Brewing in Troy.

The kolsch is the quintessential “better grab a frozen glass” beer, so get some glasses in the freezer, preferably steins, and get ready for some mouthfuls of bright, crisp, refreshing beer.

What’s in My Fridge
Grolsch Premium Lager by Grolsch Brewery (Netherlands)
OK, not a kolsch, but a couple weeks back I had one of these for the first time in I have no idea how many years. Honestly, as I think about it, my dad used to have Grolsch in the house when I was a kid but I have no recollection of ever having a Grolsch myself. I’m sure it happened at some point. I remember my dad letting my brother and me try a sip of Grolsch when we were little and I distinctly remember not liking it at all. My brother, on the other hand, had a more positive reaction and there’s photographic proof of him tilting the bottle way up to get that last sip. This features a zip of bitterness in an overall light, refreshing package. Here’s another beer that tastes like a beer.

Featured photo. Get the frosty mug ready. Photo courtesy of Jeff Mucciarone.

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