Blast Beats & Brews Festival 2025
- seangemmel
- Apr 8
- 6 min read
(This article was originally published in the April 2025 issue of Record Plug magazine.)
Metal and booze are a pairing going back to the beginning of “heavy metal-time”. If you are as old as this writer, you remember coming out of a metal show smelling like, B.O., cigarette butts, and beer. I distinctly remember being at a show and getting beer poured on my head by someone crowd-surfing. It had to happen. It was only a matter of time, where beer and metal would finally coalesce. Knotfest has the Beer Pit, Hellfest has their brewery – Hellfest Maélusine, and Decibel magazine does Metal & Beer Fest every year in a different city. Last year it was Philadelphia. Bands big, small, and legendary have collaborated with beer and liquor labels. Now Atlanta has a beer and metal fest to call its’ own, Blast Beats & Brews (BB & B). The first and only of its kind in Atlanta. It started in 2021 by self-proclaimed metalhead and concert photographer Emily Harris for three years (we’ll come back to that math.)
As a teenager, Emily spent a lot of time in the Atlanta metal scene, going to shows at the Masquerade starting around age 13 or 14. Then later turning her passion for punk and metal concerts into a profession as a concert photographer. She also produced a documentary about the Atlanta metal scene for her master's thesis at Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta. She seemed destined to be the one to bring such an event to fruition. I sat down on a call with Emily to talk about metal music, beer, photography, and the upcoming festival.
She immediately starts off “Yeah, a festival is like... It's nonstop...I woke up this morning and I couldn't go back to sleep because I was thinking about that stuff. And I was just like, I need to get up and I need to figure out the layout again. And then, like, ‘I should go back to sleep. Why am I not going back to sleep?” Further lamenting “it's constant constantly on my brain.”
The first BB & B was an outdoor event in Avondale Estates back in 2022. The idea was simple. Bring beer and brew culture together with the ambiance of some ear-punching metal music. The beginnings of what would be BB & B came from a casual conversation between Emily and Cryptopsy frontman Matt McGachy. “So, during that time [pandemic lockdown] there was no festivals, there was no concerts, there were no shows, right, in public. Like they just weren't happening. So, ...people started doing those like online video things, where they had people, the different bands film themselves... in their house.” She says, referring to the concerts at home. “So, I started thinking about that, and I was like, ‘I know a lot of bands could be really cool, you know, try to pull that together.’” As she was contemplating these things ideas opened up, which evolved into the festival we have today.
Emily started small. The inaugural BB & B fest featured only local bands and breweries. Each year, the festival grew. The festival continued for a second year, but in 2024 Emily hit a snag. “Yeah, I took 2024 off. I was planning on doing it and... there were so many factors that were getting in the way.” Says Emily. “It was co-host issues. It was venue issues. Financial. Yes. Also, a problem... It was like literally everything. I mean, it was just everything, like trying to get the bands, like the timing was off with a lot of stuff. The venue was taking too long to sign off on the permit. My co-host[s] were both [having] family issues, so it was just kind of like it got to a point where I was like, I had to make a choice, and I was like, you know what? Let's just wait until next year. And I can, you know, financially be in a better place, you know?” Emily continues. “Try to get the credit debt lowered a little bit this year, try to save it for next year. Which I think was the smart move. So, it was a win-win, I think, in a way.”
This year they have a new roster of bands, some new breweries, and a new venue. “2025 came back with a fury.” says Emily. “These are all bands who had stayed at my house at least once. These are people [who I] have hung out with a lot. They trust me.” Emily is both friends with and a fan of all the bands in the lineup. This year the bands run the gamut of the metal scene.
Subdivisions - an Atlanta-based hardcore band with accents of black metal
Gravehuffer - mixes crust, punk, grindcore, and doom metal from Joplin, Missouri
Heraklion - Thrash metal from New Orleans
Ecryptus – Death Metal; sci-fi themed, especially Star Wars, from Atlanta
Tombs – Black/Post-Metal band from New York
Exmortis – Neo Classical-Thrash from California
Æther Realm – Melodic Death Metal from Greenville, NC
The festival will be held at Atlanta Utility Works (AUW) on Saturday, April 26th. “Yeah, the venue's great. The owners are both like metalheads. So, they're both like super pumped.” Which is true, AUW regularly hosts punk and metal shows. While writing this article I reached out to the owners of AUW. Owners Melanie and Alex Styles had this to say when asked for comment. “I heard about the Blast Beats and Brews fest before Emily approached us to host it and thought to myself ‘wow what a great name and concept for a metal and beer fest!’ We're super excited to host the fest at Atlanta Utility Works, it feels great to have a pivotal role and contribute to something we can really get behind."
Emily has also arranged twelve breweries from all over Georgia to attend. Some of the brewhouses in attendance will be: Dalton Brewing Co. Dalton, Arches Brewing and Little Cottage Brewing Co. Atlanta, Savannah River Brewing Co. Augusta, and Magnanimous Brewing from Tampa, FL., the only brewery from out of state. There will even be a Kombucha brewer, Golda Kombucha, brainchild of AUW co-owner Melanie Styles. A few of these brewhouses have been working with some of the bands to create collaborative beer flavors. For those who don’t know, I am referring to a collab. This is when a band works with a brewhouse, or distillery to create a signature beverage. The Deftones did a collab with Belching Beaver. Mastodon did a collab with Atlanta’s Three Taverns Craft Beer. As you can see, it’s a bit of a trend. Æther Realm is pairing with Alchemist Meadery to create a one-of-a-kind Viking mead for the festival. Exmortus is working with Little Cottage Brewery to create a surprise brew, and the band Tombs is pairing with the brewery Magnanimous on a double dry-hopped hazy IPA. And I personally encourage everyone to try these special brews as it’s very likely you will not be able to get your hands on these anywhere else.
With all this talk about music I asked her what she is listening to lately. She admitted that she likes listening to the bands playing at the festival as she prepares for the show, but outside of that “mostly listen to a lot of, brutal death metal, melodic death metal, thrash, ... I mean it's, it's all over the place, but a lot of death metal, a lot of thrash.” She adds, “I always listen to, like, Goatwhore, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, you know, Insomnium from Finland, Omnium Gatherum from Finland, Cryptopsy from Canada. I mean, it's-it's really, it's all over the place.”
I asked what her favorite kinds of beer are, “I like sours. I like Gose (/ɡoʊzə/), I like ambers. I like some stouts. When they get really creative with the flavoring. Stouts are usually really heavy. They're like a meal.” She says with a satisfied, “yeah.”
The bands, the beer, the photography the relationships. Emily boils it all down to her philosophy. “I don't know if I told you my rule of three,” she says. “But I think my rule of three is something that pertains to doing something like what I'm doing. But... basically everything you do in your life, right? So, my rule of three is be a good person. That's number one. Number two is do good work. You could be a nice person. But if your work is shit, they’re not gonna rehire you, right? And number three is network your ass off. Network, network, network. And so those three things combined that I've done for the past decade, or more is how I'm here.”
The festival will be held Saturday, April 26th at the Atlanta Utility Works. Tickets are on sale now. The doors open at 3pm and the party goes on until 11pm. The festival will also feature a food truck pavilion and an art market as well. To purchase tickets, go to https://www.blastbeatsandbrews.com
You can also connect with BB & B online via these places below:
IG: @blastbeatsandbrews_fest
If you would like to know more about the Atlanta Utility Works, follow them online:
IG: @atlantautilityworksbrewpub
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