Nappy Roots, the group, we started in college, and we always had beer in our circle. You know, it was beer, a little bit of weed, and hip-hop when we went between classes and the studio.
So we always had beer, whether it was PBR or I was drinking Michelob at the time (my father was a Michelob drinker). So I just took that and kind of brought that to Bowling Green, Kentucky, when I was starting the group Nappy Roots in the late 1990s. I think the first beer I had by myself was a 40-ounce bottle of OE [Olde English 800] when I turned 18. And man, that thing did me in. That was probably the last time I had malt liquor.
I was drinking Red Stripe quite a bit on our last two projects. I was a Red Stripe addict. And I just loved Red Stripe. I could drink three, and I was where I needed to be, you know what I’m saying? And that was good. It was a nice little light, crispy joint for me, and I didn’t have to go too far off the rails, and I could maintain.
During that time, my partner, [Fish] Scales, was getting into growlers and going to the growler shops. He had an apartment in the city of Atlanta, and below his apartment, a corner store opened up. That store had other beers in there that I’d never heard of. And because Scales lived there, he would go down there quite a bit and just grab a random beer. And the owner was like, you know, “If you want any other kind of beer, let me know, and I’ll get it.” And Scales was like, “Whoa, I can get any kind of beer?”
So that opened up Scales’s idea of looking for other beers. It wasn’t like a light switch flipped on; it was more like an evolution into what was available and what was out there. Scales kind of led the charge for us in that direction.
Fast-forward a couple of years, and we started doing our podcast, Nappy Hour, and Scales would bring a beer of the day or a beer per episode. He would bring a new beer each time. At that time, he was bringing Monday Night Brewing’s beer. But at that time, I was completely oblivious to Monday Night or actual craft breweries per se. I was just, “Beer is beer.” I was thinking it’s probably manufactured in a factory that looks like G.E. or something. You know, you drive by Budweiser, and it’s huge.
We had a partner, a friend of ours named Robbie, who came through the podcast one day. At the end of the podcast, Robbie was like, “I went to school with the head brewer of Monday Night; he was my roommate. I could set up a meeting for you guys if you want.” Of course, we don’t turn down any opportunity, so we said, “Hell yeah! Let’s do it.” So we set up a meeting the next day with Monday Night.
We walked down there. We sat down and just talked it up with them, and they were like, “You guys want to make a beer?” And we’re like, “Yeah!” So they said, “Come by tomorrow, and we’ll make a beer.” So we went back the next day, and that was my first time actually making a beer and looking at the equipment.
Once I made a beer with Monday Night and actually saw the process unfold—you know, the mashing in the grains, and creating the wort, and taking the spent grains and shoveling ’em out, and coming to the boil, and dropping the hops. All of that, the process of it just intrigued me because I’m more of that type of thinker. I like to learn, and that was something I felt like I could learn. It was similar to making music.
You know, making beer is very similar to making music. You make a good song, it could take you two weeks. Just going back and forth and adding different things. And you know, I could correlate the whole process of making beer to even making an album. You know, a brewery is like a record label. And every beer that comes out of a brewery is almost like a song. And you can correlate those two in time, energy.
The brewers are the engineers. And the chemist, or whoever is making the recipe, is kind of like the producer, and the artist is—I guess—everybody involved who makes this one thing happen. And when the beer comes out of these breweries, they make this special day about it.
I could correlate how making a beer was like making music, and I wanted in.
Hip-hop, in my opinion, was ready for craft beer when we made it in 2016. I felt that. It’s happening. Craft beer and hip-hop are two billion-dollar industries that could merge, and it’s a lot of money for everyone.
So from 2016 up until now, I’ve just been learning as much as I can. We’ve been working on building our brewery, Atlantucky. We got a Sabco from Monday Night—they gave us their system. And we’ve been making beer at our place. And when we travel, if a brewery is cool and we hit it off right, we try to do a collaboration, upon our availability being in the city or their availability. So we’ve been lucky enough to do about ten collaborations nationwide over the past two or three years.
We’ve just been at it, man. Making music, making beer, touring, and, you know, just having fun doing all three.
Skinny DeVille’s Favorite Breweries of 2019
Braxton Brewing (Covington, Kentucky)
They’re making really good, transparent beers. It’s the exact style they say it is—an IPA is an IPA, a hefeweizen is a hefeweizen with a banana nose and clove. There’s no funny business, no wizard behind the curtain.
Wild Leap Brew Co. (LaGrange, Georgia)
The flavors are amazing. I always look for them when I go somewhere. Alpha Abstraction, Vol. 7 is really good.
Dancing Gnome (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
We did the Fresh Fest this year, the black beer festival. When I go into a brewery, I always get a flight, to try them all out, and theirs were really, really good.
Cherry Street Brewing (Cumming, Georgia)
They have some good pepper beers, and I’m a pepper beer fan. Love a good pepper beer. Habanero, serrano—you have my attention when you throw those in.
Country Boy Brewing (Georgetown, Kentucky)
They have a really good thing going on, in my opinion.
Sig Luscher (Frankfort, Kentucky)
We just did a collaboration with them, an Oktoberfest. They make German-style beers, and their beers are spot-on and really, really good.
Cahaba Brewing (Birmingham, Alabama)
Their brewery is owned by actual firefighters. They’ll get a call and have to run and go put out a fire. They’re making very good beers as well—very true to style.
New Belgium Brewing (Asheville, North Carolina, and Fort Collins, Colorado)
Of course, everyone knows New Belgium. I took a tour of their Asheville location, and it was amazing. It’s like the Starship Enterprise when I went into their brewhouse.
Jekyll Brewing (Alpharetta, Georgia)
I like their Hop Dang Diggity Southern IPA. That one is always good.
TrimTab Brewing (Birmingham, Alabama)
They’re making some really great beers.
Straight to Ale (Huntsville, Alabama)
I like how they took an old elementary school and converted it to a brewhouse. Very cool things going on up there.
Against the Grain (Louisville, Kentucky)
They’ve got some really cool stuff going on. I love Against the Grain.
Full Circle Brewing (Fresno, California)
They’re doing a lot of really cool stuff with artists, to where they’re doing a lot of events. They made a Good Day IPA for us, but not just that, they’re just doing some really cool shit. You wouldn’t think Fresno, but yeah, it’s like Fresno. Their Illa Vanilla is something I really like. And their Peach Bomb is some really good shit.
Southern Tier Brewing (Lakewood, New York)
I just had a Nitro Chocolate Milkshake imperial milk stout from them. That beer—I had to buy a 4- pack and bring it home because it was that good.
