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From Beer Authority to the Sunset Strip: Eddie's Dive Bar Nears the End of Its First USA Run
Iron Maiden's Eddie's Dive Bar pop-up crossed the Atlantic for the first time this September, landing at Beer Authority in Hell's Kitchen with a new Lagunitas-brewed Trooper West Coast IPA and the brand's first-ever paid "Beer Roadie."

Randall Wilburn
Sep 239 min read


RAW Metal Bar: Munich’s No-Frills Refuge for Heavy Music
Munich may be internationally defined by beer halls, brass bands and Oktoberfest, but several blocks north of the historic center there is another side of the city’s drinking culture—one built around distorted guitars rather than oompah music.

Randall Wilburn
Sep 235 min read


Iron Maiden Pub Quiz: Michael Legge and Dan Mersh Turn Maiden Fandom into a Conversation
There are Iron Maiden podcasts devoted to news, album rankings, setlists and exhaustive musical analysis. Iron Maiden Pub Quiz does all of those things—at least occasionally...

Randall Wilburn
Sep 1412 min read


Four Shades of Bay Area Heavy: Marrower, Theya, Kings Beneath and Prima Materia Descend on The Hub
Prima Materia, Kings Beneath, Theya and Marrower didn't simply give Redwood City four metal bands. They demonstrated four very different answers to the same basic question: just how heavy can heavy become?

Randall Wilburn
Sep 312 min read


Holy Goat Brewing Finds a “Rainbow in the Dark”
There are beer names that happen to sound metal, and then there are beers whose heavy-metal intentions are almost impossible to misunderstand. Dundee, Scotland’s Holy Goat Brewing has unveiled Rainbow in the Dark, a new 6.66% ABV release whose title points directly toward one of Ronnie James Dio’s most enduring songs. Holy Goat teased the beer publicly on August 29, 2026, pairing the unmistakable title with an equally unmistakable alcohol content: 6.66 percent. For a brewery

Randall Wilburn
Aug 314 min read


Four Bands, Two Countries: The Hub's August 18 Trad-Metal Bill
Space Vacation, Tower Hill, Adamantis and Hands of Goro brought four different interpretations of old-school heavy metal to an unlikely Peninsula stronghold on Tuesday, August 18. That night ,in downtown Redwood City, the distance between the Bay Area, the Canadian Prairies and Boston suddenly became very small...

Randall Wilburn
Aug 2113 min read


Camden Town: Metal, Punk and Independent Beer in London’s Loudest Neighborhood
The Black Heart, The Devonshire Arms, Werewolf Beer, and The Underground form a compact Camden circuit where visitors can move from locally brewed beer to a metal pub, an upstairs gig room and, finally, a full-volume Sunday-night show.

Randall Wilburn
Aug 136 min read


Beer, Metal and a Little Balance: MetalYoga at the Cart & Horses
On Tuesday, July 7, 2026, those who had signed up and made the trek to London’s legendary Cart & Horses were presented with a combination that, on paper, sounds almost deliberately contradictory: yoga, heavy metal and beer. In this context, it made considerable sense.

Randall Wilburn
Aug 105 min read


Up and Down in Copenhagen: The Zeppelin Bar and The Left Hand Path
Copenhagen has no shortage of great beer or heavy music—but sometimes the best stories only appear when you walk through the right door.

Randall Wilburn
Jul 296 min read


Discovering Malmö: A Journey Through the City’s Unique Stops
A walking tour of Södra Förstadsgatan in Malmö: the Disgusting Food Museum, Science Fiction Bokhandeln, and Arsenik Bistro, in order down the same street.

Randall Wilburn
Jul 256 min read


Down the Stairs and Into the Labeerynt: Gdańsk's Underground Haven for Craft Beer and Heavy Music
Hidden beneath the streets of Gdańsk's historic center, Labeerynt combines Polish craft beer, shadowy cellar-bar atmosphere and a rock-and-metal sensibility that feels refreshingly unpolished.

Randall Wilburn
Jul 198 min read


Overkill Birreria: Florence's Metal Sanctuary Hidden in Plain Sight
Florence isn't the first city that comes to mind for heavy metal, but Overkill Birreria — seven years running, madonnara murals on the walls, German lager on tap — is making a genuine case.

Randall Wilburn
Jun 197 min read


Blue Ruin: Where Hell's Kitchen Serves up Cold Drinks and Heavy Music
The door at 538 Ninth Avenue does not advertise. This is Blue Ruin — Hell's Kitchen's dark, loud, cash-only dive that has outlasted the boutique hotels and glass towers colonizing the surrounding blocks since 2009.

Tim McShane
May 237 min read


Inside Doom, Philadelphia's Metal Bar
Eighteen months in, Doom — the black-brick metal bar on the same Callowhill block as Franklin Music Hall — has become the closest thing Philadelphia has to a permanent address for its metal community. Inside the cathedral on 7th Street: founders Justin Holden and Will Yip, Chef Ian Hunter's mapo chili dog, the Doom Me cocktail, the revived Split Thy Skull barleywine fest, the Miss American Vampire pageant, and the Decibel Metal & Beer Fest 2026 home-base partnership.

Randall Wilburn
May 128 min read


Le Black Dog: Heavy Metal, Argentinian steaks, and beer...
Heavy Metal, Argentinian steaks, and beer...

Tim McShane
Apr 227 min read
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