Hop-Heavy: Gang Starr Cold Barelled
Image by Scuzz
Southern Cal breweries collab and produce a tasty Pilsner for beer casuals.
Breweries: Kings Brewing Company (Rancho Cucamonga, CA) & Mason Ale Works (Oceanside, CA)
Artist: Gang Starr
Beer: “Cellared Cold Barreled Pilsner” (5% ABV)
Song: “Mass Appeal”
How’s the beer?
The Pilsner has become a favorite of beer consumers due to its throwback style, as in it is super easy to throwback a Pilsner and enjoy it. Two So Cal breweries are doing the Lord’s work in attempting to bring humanity together one lovely sip at a time.
Around forty miles east of Los Angeles, in the hot and dusty Inland Empire, is the old vineyard town of Rancho Cucamonga. Rancho is the home of the Dodgers Single-A baseball team, the Quakes, and it’s also the home of Kings Brewing Co., a local favorite of mine. Oceanside is around forty miles north of San Diego. I’ve never been to Mason Ale Works, but I’ve visited Oceanside a few times to kick it with friends. I’ve felt the Padres pride in that area. It only gets stronger the further south you travel from there. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, that’s understandable. Regional baseball rivalries are for fanatics. Crazy people. Dodgers’ fans: Crazy. Padres’ fans: Crazy. Their division rivalry has gained league-wide recognition over the years and spurred a lot of trash talk and aggressive internet memeing, so it’s nice to see these two breweries bring their regional pride together and create “Cellared Cold Barreled Pilsner”.
“Cellared…” looks and tastes like an OG Czech Pilsner. Gold and brilliant in color and with a hint of cracker in its flavor, like a kiss from a Ritz. The pint I cracked had a bit more carbonation than I expected, and the result of my typically fine pour was absolutely no head (like how most of my nights go). You can see the disappointing evidence in my picture below. A quick scan of the internet netted me several other photos people had taken of “Cellared…” in a glass in which their beer looked like mine, so maybe it’s a thing.
Photo by Nick M.W.
This beer was brewed for beer casuals, but it may not impress connoisseurs. That’s not a sneak diss; this is a refreshing beverage that can be enjoyed at a variety of events. It’s a ballpark beer. It’s a cinema beer. It’s a beach beer. It’s a barbeque beer. It’s a beer for all occasions because Pilsners have mass appeal, and that’s something beer snobs hate.
What about the music ?
Given the global love for a smooth Pils, I found the perfect audio companion; the universally beloved Gang Starr, and one of their many bangers, “Mass Appeal”. Thematically, this pairing is a little ironic. On the track, Guru is blasting sellouts for tailoring their sound to mainstream success because he and DJ Premier are true artists. They only ever put out hardcore hip-hop. The “Hip-Hop” kind of hip-hop. Pilsners are the beer industry’s version of a sellout (“say what?”). All the major beer distributors in the U.S. deal primarily in Pilsner. Not all Pilsners suck, but it isn’t considered a prestige type of beer, like the lauded IPA. In the case of Budweiser, Coors, and Michelob, their mass produced product is in fact watered down. Piss water. These mass produced beers are in no way a true representation of the refreshing flavor a well-crafted Pilsner has to offer. They are not “Cellared...”.
Ironically, “Mass Appeal”, the song Gang Starr made to clown radio rap, became the duo’s biggest commercial success. They earned heavy radio rotation because the mainstream found them, in spite of the fact that the mainstream is getting clowned for three minutes and forty-one seconds. DJ Premier’s simplistic yet catchy beat was created as a joke to poke fun at radio hits, and their simple formula for success. Maybe that was the magic in Primo’s touch on this record. Dude heard a few notes from a Vic Juris sample, slowed them down a bit (along with some other razzmatazz), added some drums and a bass line, and had himself a hit.
“Cellared Cold Barreled…” is the high-end charcuterie made to pair well with the fine aged wine of Gang Starr’s own “Mass Appeal”.
