MONDAY MAY 23 2016: South Sound events + craft beer
Gypsy jazz + Rumbletowne Red = good times
Vinyl night + Sour Beer Club = Lipps Inc.
CHICKADEE
Olympia five-piece Chickadee draw on an extensive repertoire of originals, pop tunes and songs from the Great American Songbook with their love of old-time swing, complicated by gypsy jazz master Django Reinhardt and refined through French song. And like a river flooding over a dozen tributaries, their music washes away genres in a massive crest of rhythm. Catch Chickadee at 8 p.m. in Rhythm & Rye.
PREFUNK: American ambers and red ales obviously take their names from their amber to reddish-copper hues. The style gets its color from dark malts, which often lend sweet hints of caramel and chocolate to the background. Some brewers see these as the same style. Others distinguish between the amber ale and the red ale: An amber is more malt-focused and balanced, while the American red (a style often associated with the West Coast) is bolder in hop character and higher in alcohol. Named in homage to Olympia record label Rumbletowne Records, Three Magnets Brewing Co. brewed Rumbletowne Red, a Northwest amber ale named a Red that’s an easy drinking 5.0 percent, like an amber, but ventures into Red territory with a Centennial and Amarillo hop bump into 50 IBUs. So there.
VINYL NIGHT
There is something spiritually satisfying about vinyl. It’s a subtle way of saying you care. As the buyer, you pledge your allegiance to the album by accepting its inconvenience. It takes up space. It is difficult to actually listen to. It requires specific storage conditions. Deep inside, you don’t want music to be convenient. You want to submit yourself to the artform. Vinyl gives you that opportunity in some small way. Like a golden cross necklace or miniature Buddha shrine, it is not the physical specimen of the vinyl record that enriches you but the intangible ideas it represents: permanence, devotion. Those bulky, archaic discs lining your shelves can be an inspiration to live your life as if it will one day be pressed to vinyl. Walk into The Copper Door with your head high and your vinyl underneath your arm. The Tacoma Stadium District bottle shop and taproom hauls out its record player every second and fourth Monday at 8 p.m. just for you.
PREFUNK: Engine House No. 9 sports a Sour Beer Club. Drink 20 sour or funky beers in three months and you’ll earn a spot on the Tacoma restaurant and brewery’s exclusive email list entitling you to first pick in bottle releases and a bitchin’ limited edition Teku style glass.
