The time I wrote a song dedicated to Jester King Brewery

I drank a lot of Jester King in 2012.  Like, a lot.  For a long period of time, it was the first thing I would look for when I would go on a beer run.  I would only buy other beers if Jester King wasn't available

Jester King, for those who are unfamiliar, is a young brewery located just outside of Austin specializing in unique USDA Certified Organic beers.  When I visited the brewery for the first time in September 2011, their Wytchmaker Farmhouse Rye India Pale Ale made me an instant fan.

In their second year of operation, they started getting really experimental with their brews.  It seemed that every other brew they released was some sort of off-key experiment.  Some were hits; some were big misses.  They even teamed up with a famed local barbecue joint, the Salt Lick, to release a smoked saison.... which was just alright.

Before I was alienated by Jester King's experiments, I was writing and recording an album.  One of my hobbies is that I have an instrumental doom/post-rock project called Affordable Caskets.  It's intentionally lo-fi.  I self-released the eponymous debut album last summer for free on Bandcamp.

The second track on the album is called "The Jester King."  I wasn't drinking any Jester King when I wrote it the previous year, but I certainly was during the recording of the track in Spring 2012.  I was having trouble coming up with a name for the song until I took a beer break in between takes of a guitar solo.

"Screw it," I said.  "I'll just name it after this beer."

And so I did.

After the song was completed, I tweeted the link a few dozen times to Jester King on Twitter and the only response I got was a "favorite" on one of the tweets.

After recording and releasing the song, my consumption of Jester King started to gradually decrease and my beer purchases were more diversified.  It was as if I expelled something that needed to get out.

I still love a majority of Jester King's beers (and all of their labels are spectacular), so I plan to visit the brewery again this Fall when the breeze returns to Central Texas.  Check out their beers if you ever see them in your local store or on tap at your favorite bar.

Listen to "The Jester King" on Bandcamp

Listen to Affordable Caskets on Bandcamp

Drink pairing for this post: Stone I.P.A. (sorry, no Jester King in my fridge right now.... but check out the glass)