Some people intentionally show up late to shows, thinking that watching the opener is a waste of time. I like catching openers since it’s like getting a bonus concert. Can you imagine if every time you bought a pint of a beer you were eager to drink, you got a free half pint of some beer you likely never tried?
Chris Trapper’s first song’s first line went, “Put a keg on my coffin.” Throughout the rest of the song, I pondered that interesting twist on the desert island beers question about what you’d want to have if stranded out at sea. Admittedly, at first I started dreaming about what one keg I’d want with me inside my coffin. But then I got caught up on whether that meant I’d get to take it with me to some theoretical next world or if I’d have to drink it in the pitch blackness of my cramped eternal resting place (if I got to drink it at all). Whether it’s a bottomless keg or just the 15.5 gallons became another question. I mean, after all, if it was a one-fill I might pick something supremely fresh and hoppy if I’m gonna drink right away otherwise, if it’s there eternally, I’d select something that would age well, in case I exhibit amazing will power in death.
Then I came around to the lyric’s intent. The keg isn’t there for whom the bell tolls. The funeral’s for me, but the beer’s not. So what keg would I want on my coffin (and take note, I most certainly want one there when the time comes)? Do I pick a crowd pleaser like Sierra Nevada Pale Ale? Or one of my all-time favorites like Ballast Point Sculpin IPA? Then again, perhaps Deschutes’s The Abyss is more fitting since it’s dark for days, complex yet enjoyable, and will be good for years on end in case mourners and celebrants can’t kill it at my wake.
So, while you hopefully have many more decades of health, happiness, and good beer drinking ahead of you, cut to your funeral, your friends and family show up, and all that eulogizing makes them thirsty. What keg do you want on your coffin?
