Popination Mutation

a series of unhinged personal essays disguised as pub reviews. Today: Black Sky Brewery.

Beer & Pizza & Metal? Don’t mind if I do.

What is it about Metal culture and breweries? Why does heavy metal and beer go together so well? This is, what, the 4th Metal-themed… well, The Crypt isn’t a brewery, but it is a Metal and horror themed bar. Then there was Incantation Brewery, Trve Brewery, and now this. Please don’t get me wrong—I’m certainly not complaining, I love the combination. But it’s definitely a Musing: why this pairing? Obviously I’m not the only one who enjoys the combo, either, because all 4 of these places seem to be doing just fine. Today’s place even has a collab beer with Incantation, and when chatting with the gruff bartender, I learned that she enjoys going to Trve for lunch often enough. Beer and Metal definitely have good community as part of their culture, so I imagine both together is the warmest of village size hugs.

Black Sky Brewery

…is a big concrete building painted over with murals. The Uber dropped me off on the corner, and it was something of a journey from the false entrance (a pic of which I shared over on Substack Notes yesterday) to the dive-bar-looking, bright red, bestickered front door which was the real entrance.

Inside, it was an open and cavernous warehouse, with lots of hard rock and metal paraphernalia stuck to all the walls. Concrete and exposed ceiling, of course, like most other breweries I’ve described, just really Metal. It has a long broad wooden bar (which is where I sat), and several largish diner style tables and padded vinyl chairs across the expanse of concrete floor. As big and wide as it was, and as obviously thriving, it was pretty empty at this time of the weekday afternoon. A couple of femme queers bearing multiple piercings enjoyed a pizza with their pints at one corner of the bar, and to my right at the other end, a couple of guys looking deceptively out of place in light colored, almost golf style summer wear. They seemed to know the music playing, though, unlike Shazam—it was a lovely growly extreme selection that my app could make nothing of. 

I was really tempted to play one of those pinball games, but I didn’t get around to it.

All the beers I tried had Metal themed names, natch, including the Brewtal Hops IPA which was a bit light for me but still tasty enough to finish, and the Suicide Cages dark lager, which not only is on theme, but is named after the actual band that they collaborated with to create this brew. I liked it even more than the IPA—crisp and flavorful, and low enough ABV that it was very drinkable. There was also the big beautifully illustrated crowler I took home, a spiced ale/lager combo, in collaboration with Heilung. Yes, that Heilung. Next time I go, I want to try their Petal to the Metal, which is an ale laced with rose and hibiscus. I have a feeling that’s a summer sesonal one, though, so I should get on it.

But I didn’t do that one at my first visit—I enjoyed my two cold and well-poured pints slowly, one after the other, sipping contentedly as I gazed around at the Metal themed pinball machines, the musical relics displayed on the walls, and the little sign next to the digital jukebox, which warned in a spiky font that ‘any non metal music will be skipped,’ as the gruff bartender chatted with me amiably, and a couple of very tatted men trundled kegs and brewing equipment back and forth the while. And by very tatted, I mean *very* tatted: one of the men had a full dark-feathered raven flowing up along his neck to frame his left eye, and surrounding his right eye, a detailed Viking axe complete with runes.

Like other Metal themed places I’ve Popinated to before, Black Sky also has great food, with a large portion of the menu offering vegan dishes. That seems to be a trend among the punks and metalheads, too—plant based diets, along with a long list of low and no alcohol options. Metal = health? I’m a say yes. For the record, I had a slice of pizza, plain with anchovies only. It was delicious: thin crust almost cracker-crisp, obviously cooked on a stone or with a dedicated pizza oven. I assume the latter, as pizza and adjacent foods are the only things on the menu (besides salads). I actually heard tales told about their calzones, but as I was alone there on this trip, and the calzones are fabled to feed at least two people each, I contented myself with the slice. I was not disappointed. Yum.

They have a bunch of weird non-beer bevvies here too that filled me with curiosity.

All in all, Black Sky was an enjoyable experience, as slow as it was at the time I was there. It was a nice little journey to take, out into the beery world of Denver, as my partner was away overseas on business and his kids were at their mom’s house for the week. I get serious cabin fever these days when left alone for too long, as much as my ambivert self still appreciates the recharge. But too long alone drives me mad—these are not the deep healing days of the Birdhouse, after all, and I’m still getting used to living away from my hometown. Beer adventures are good for the brain, I’ve decided, and hey: I hear Black Sky has Metal karaoke nights. Maybe I can drag some folks down there to go thrash out our voices some evening this summer, as a lark.