In case you’ve been living under a rock this past week or have been avoiding social media, you may not have heard that we just let loose our latest edition (Volume 5!) of Nothin’ But The Hops late last week. On any given day that would be cause for at least a little fanfare. After all, more blends of hoppy goodness = more smiling faces and more good in the world. However, we decided to make this an extra special edition and do something that hasn’t really been done much around these parts.
We were approached a few months ago by a good friend of the brewery, DJ Stop. (aka Norman Breaks) with a really cool idea. For those of you unfamiliar with his name, you may have seen (or heard) him around town doing what he does best, making you nod ya head in time with his beats. In fact, if you’d ever come to spend the evening with us back in the old days of bartending at Stone Angel, there was a good chance that he was supplying the ambiance for the evening. He’d bring stacks and stacks of his vast record library to quench your thirsty ears while the beer took care of the rest of your anatomy. You may have caught him on a break between tracks too, chatting with him at the bar top and thought he was a pretty cool cat with a great accent.
Well, we can attest that not only is he a cool cat with a great accent (all true), but he’s super talented, completely in love with music, way into craft beer, and just all-around a really great guy. So when he told us that he was dropping a debut album we were ecstatic for him. And when he told us that he wanted to offer up a free track from said album to DMC customers we were instantly sold on the idea. Once again, he’d take care of your ears and we’d take care of your mouth parts. Just like old times, man.
The logical place to do it was to stick the download right on the can for Volume 5 in the form of a QR code that you can scan as soon as you’ve got one in your hand. If you have some Vol 5 handy and you haven’t checked out Norman’s free track, I highly recommend you do – they are some of the best beats you’ll hear this summer. Go ahead, we’ll wait while you let that track transport you to good places.
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OK, we’re back. If you scanned that code there’s a good chance that you loved it. There’s also a great chance that you’ll love Paper Walls, the debut album by Norman Breaks. Please consider checking it out and purchasing the whole thing. There’s a ton of talent, effort, and love put into his work and we think he deserves to get paid for it. We love it, and we think you will too. Don’t forget to check him out on Instagram too and let him know DMC sent ya!
Since we weren’t content just to stop at 10 (we’ve been known to go 11 on occasion), we’d dial up the Manitoba content even more and ask our buddies at Prairie Mountain Hops in Southwestern Manitoba to supply the hops for this edition exclusively. We decided on a blend of Comet, Centennial, and Chinook hops to dial up the old-school vibes. What we ended up with was a citrus bomb full of grapefruit, pine, and some lovely stone fruit notes. This reminds us of the days of our budding beer-geekery when we had to use every trick in the book to score West Coast IPAs from BC, Washington, Oregon, and California. It’s a firm reminder of a place in time before DMC was even an idea, but it’s also a reminder of the road that brought us to where we are today.
Also of note – this is the first time we’ve filled any kegs at all with one of our mixtape IPAs. They’ve all been snapped up by a very cool venue, so maybe we’ll see you there when it’s tapped to enjoy some Vol 5 on draught. If you see us around, come say howdy.
So we really hope you love the Manitoba Mix. This may be our favourite edition of NBTH yet. Maybe we’ll do it again next year.
