Thom Dunn is a Boston-based writer, musician, and utterly terrible dancer. He is the singer/guitarist for the indie rock/power-pop the Roland High Life, as well as a staff writer for the New York Times’ Wirecutter and a regular contributor at BoingBoing.net. Thom enjoys Oxford commas, metaphysics, and romantic clichés (especially when they involve whiskey), and he firmly believes that Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" is the single greatest atrocity committed against mankind. He is a graduate of Clarion Writer's Workshop at UCSD ('13) & Emerson College ('08).
Come catch the Roland High Life on Friday, July 22 at Exhibit A Brewing in Framingham, MA. It’s an outdoor show, and we’re on early at 7pm — so there’s really no excuse not to come out and rock out, right? We’ll even have merch!
But even if you can’t make it, we’ve got some stuff coming in August and September, too. See ya at the show!
My latest piece for the Weather Channel involves two of my favorite things: sustainability, and beer!
Specifically, it’s about a Trappist Monastery in Belgium that has instituted a cool new way to clean their beer tanks using phytoremediation, or plant-based fining. This is not only an environmentally-friendly method of beer production, but it’s also a scalable project that can ultimately help the monastery to produce more microgreens, legumes, and other human-edible food products, making the entire beer production process that much better for people, and the planet.
I also spoke with some other religious leaders about the role of God in environmental stewardship. While the popular narrative tends to show climate-denying Evangelical Christians, there are in fact many devout Christians whose faith actually calls them to actively protect God’s planet from the greed of mankind. And that’s a really powerful message that the world could use right now.
I hit a serious wall of brain fog around 3:30pm yesterday, so I decided to get some fresh air and walk to the pub.
(And for the record: yes, this is a thing I actually do. I go to the pub by myself to read or to write or just to BS with strangers and feel like I'm being social after being cooped up in my house all alone and writing all day. And of course, being me, my pub of choice is an Irish hipster punk rock dive bar named for a radical socialist LGBTQ-friendly IRA poet, because, duh)
At some point, I was sitting there reading this article from The Intercept on my phone when I ended up in conversation with the guy to my right over which whiskey he should order. I just overheard him talking to the bartender about voting for Trump, and given the number of election-related thinkpieces about "understanding Trump voters" I had tried to absorb during my earlier brainfog, I decided to keep the conversation going. He was a 50 year old white guy, and being that I live in the kind of progressive bastion neighborhood that would protest a god damn Whole Foods, I was curious what kind of Trump voter would end up at a pub like that.
Read MoreLook at that crab and his smarmy little smile. He knew exactly what he was doing. What a little jerk! At least the crab, I don't know, trick the poor guy with a stick of dynamite and shout something obscene like "You've got crabs, ass-face!"
Oh wait...
I'm not sure how I discovered the work of Richard Stevens, but I've been immensely enjoying his cartoons. Maybe it's the self-aware pretentious nerd inside of me, but this one...this one speaks to me, man, you know?
While it still bums me out that beer remains such a sexist industries, these women are doing awesome work, and it's nice to seem them get the recognition they deserve. Go team!
Read MoreI have kind of a thing with blood oranges, and every year during those 18-days when they're available (seriously it feels like it's that short), I try to stock up as much as possible -- including making some kind of blood orange beer. The first was a Chocolate Blood Orange Stout, followed by a hefeweizen, and then an IPA (whose recipe I sadly did not record). White IPAs (basically a hybrid of a witbier/white ale and an IPA) are all the rage this year in the craft beer world, so I decided to jump on the bandwagon and create a Blood Orange White IPA. I based this on the Northern Brewer Witbier kit but replaced the hops bill with 1oz of Columbus for the full 60 minute boil, followed by 1oz of Cascade, 1oz of Citra, and 1oz of Centennial in the last ten minutes. I used the roasted peels of 6 blood oranges (removing as much white rind as possible), and boiled their pulp in water and added the juices to the wort.
If nothing else, I guarantee that it'll look a purrty color.
Unfortunately, "Blood Orange White IPA" is kind of a clumsy name -- it doesn't really make sense to have orange AND white in the title, ya know? So I took to Facebook to ask my friends for suggestions, and rounded up my favorites in the poll below. Make your voice heard!...for the beer that goes in my belly (don't worry, I'm willing to share).
Or, bottling them, anyway.
Last night I bottled this Irish Draught Ale, which is the first beer that I'll complete from a Northern Brewer recipe kit (long story short, Modern Homebrew in Cambridge is horrible, and everyone who works there is like Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons only worse). It's a Smithwick's-style ale, with some honey added as a cultural throwback. But even the room-temp, flat tasting sample shown above was pretty delicious, so I'm looking forward to it. Lucky for me, I finished it just in time for St. Paddy's Day!
Coming up soon in the fermenters, I've got a Blood Orange White IPA (not sure what to call that color combination yet....), and my first Pilsner (which I'm kind of terrified of). Stay tuned for more!
New post on Five By Five Hundred about the secret history of that wretched poison that people actually pretend to like. Ugh.
Over on the Quirk Books blog, I propose a few days for Alternative Oktoberfests, mostly inspired by books, in case you're one of those weirdos (not like me) who somehow doesn't enjoy a sixteen-day festival of beer and bratwurst (weird). Check it out:
Look, we all know that I love stories and drinking. This is no secret to anyone who's ever spoken to me for more than a minute. So naturally, I've got another article on the topic that's now live over at Quirk Books. Think of this as a kind of companion piece to my How To Drink Like Your Favorite Writer and A Guide To Pairing Your Comic Books and Beer posts. You liked those, right? Of course you did.
Here's a new post I did for the fine folks at Quirk Books, about two of mankind's greatest creations: alcohol, and literature.
By now, I'm sure you've read my (totally awesome) Comic Book & Beer Pairing Article over at Quirk Books. And so has Alyssa Milano (you know, from Melrose Place and Charmed and Who's The Boss and — yes! That Alyssa Milano!)
It was a good day.
Head on over to the fine folks at Quirk Books and check out my world-famous (read: on the internet) Comic Book & Beer Pairings article on their blog! It's comic books, and beer, together. What more could you possibly want? Also, shout out to Quirk's Marketing & Social Media Coordinator Eric Smith for the fantastic pictures that he scrounged together to accompany each entry. They help make the article extra awesome-worthy.
It's a good week for being me! I opened up a print copy (on newsprint! Gets on your hands!) of Boston's Weekly Dig, only to find that they reprinted my tweet to them about my Haiku Beer Reviews from last week's Beer Summit (for which I had tickets from the Dig), and they even printed one of the haikus (for ZOMBIE KILLER Meade from B.Nektar) in their pages. This marks the second time that the Dig has printed one of my silly poems (the last time being in October, 2010 in their "Oh, Cruel World!" column, wherein I expressed my violent rage about a bicycle accident in verse) which all just makes me think that they should give me a job as "Official Writer of Silly Verse" or something. Vagabond Theatre Group, who is the producing the upcoming reading of my play True Believers, posted a lovely and thoughtful blogpost about my play, and the trend (or lack thereof) of comic book-related stories in theatre. It's a brief but flattering piece, that you should check out if you have the chance!
Coming up: even more news that I can't quite officially announce yet. Hollerr.
Continuing in my established tradition from the Mass Brewer's Fest and last year's Winter Beer Jubilee, I present for you the latest installment of Haiku Beer Review, compiled at the 2012 Winter Beer Summit. I make tasting notes into my phone as the night goes on, so that I can turn them into haikus when I get home (and eventually sober up). I know, I know, I'm a genius, it's true. Anyway, enjoy! (Also, thanks to Dig Boston for the free tickets and for putting up with my whining. #thomdunnwantsbeer)
I started homebrewing hard cider when I found out that my good friend and drinking buddy Charles had an allergy to hops (which I still assert is the most ridiculous allergy on the planet, even moreso than peanuts. Hops literally are not used for anything except for beer and the occasional tea! But I digress). Of course it was just a matter of time before another drinking partner of mine came forth with a different problem: celiac disease. Meaning no gluten. Meaning no beer.
Okay, yes, sure, gluten-free beers do exist, but unfortunately, they're not very good. And so, my good friend Jeff Marcus enlisted in my aid to help him create a homebrewed gluten-free beer that was exactly good! Something hopefully more hoppy and full-bodied (gluten-free beers are notoriously sweet and light-bodied), possibly even eventually something darker like a porter or stout (but that's not for a while).
It's currently way too early to deduce if our wild experiment was actually successful, but I'll keep you updated as the fermentation process moves along. In any case, here's the recipe for our Gluten-free HoneyHop Pale Ale (which is the name I just came up with right now and isn't very good).
In a tradition that began back in January at the Winter Beer Jubilee in Boston, I recently posted the second iteration of my "Haiku Beer Review" series, which is precisely what it sounds like — beer reviews, in haiku form (I also try to tweet Haiku Beer Reviews whenever I try a new brew at a bar). These reviews began as voice memos that were taken by my friends and I at the Mass Brewer’s Fest at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston on September 2, 2011, but I only just got around to compiling the voice memos and turning them into haikus. Anyway, if you like beer and/or poetry and/or drinking, I'd advise you check it out (along with, hopefully, some new beers)!
Here's the thing: I'm 25 years old, just over 3 years out of college. I stay out late, I drink (and make) lots of beer, I work in the arts, and show up at my job most days in cut-off jean shorts (or "jorts," if you will) and a t-shirt. I don't feel that old — I'm not that old — and the idea of college doesn't seem like it's so far away. But biking from Harvard Square on Friday night, I discovered that college was indeed back in session, and that I have apparently become a jaded old man. It was the first weekend of college for many freshmen at Boston's countless universities. It was a beautiful night as well, so the frosh were out in droves, playing at adulthood by making lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of obnoxious (but incredibly fun) mistakes from which they will (one day) hopefully learn. "Freshmen Weekend," as I like to call it, is not that day. My bike route brought me past Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Northeastern, and Wentworth University, as well as plenty of off-campus student abodes. You know those 13-year cicadas? It was kind of like that.
So mid-bike ride (I swear, it was totally safe), I recorded this poem, which I then fixed up when I got home. Enjoy!
Just took of care of the first (pre-watermelon) steps of my new homemade hard cider (which I'm starting now in anticipation of the fall). Once the wort-apple juice combination completes its first fermentation, I'm going rack the brew and let it sit on top of several pounds of sliced watermelon to soak up some additional (unfermented) flavor. We'll see it goes. In the meantime, take a look at the full recipe over in the homebrew section.
