Only rule of Olympic Mountain Beer Choir: Just show up

Two things distinguish the Beer Choir from most choral groups.

First, this choir rehearses in public yet never performs. Second, many of the singers spend as much time at rehearsals drinking as they do singing.

The choir began in St. Louis in 2014, and the Olympic Mountain chapter started meeting in June. The group’s singers, led by Matthew Blegen of Union, will gather again Aug. 24 to sing along to John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John and company in the rock-and-roll high-school movie musical “Grease.”

At a typical rehearsal, singers — microbrews in hand — belt out such tunes as “Dough-Ray-Me,” a rewrite of a beloved tune from “The Sound of Music” with lyrics including: “Dough, the stuff that buys me beer. Ray, the guy who serves my beer. Me, the guy who drinks my beer. Far, a long, long way for beer.” The Beer Choir Hymnal (available free at beerchoir.com) offers this note on the song: “Like Julie Andrews, but more surly … and slurry.”

“This is not a polished thing at all,” Blegen said in a phone interview this week. “We just show up. It’s just for the joy of singing together and having a good time together.”

The choir aims to build community and introduce people to the joys of choral music. The group’s mission, Beer Choir founder Michael Engelhardt explains on the group’s website, is to “bring choir to the people.”

In line with that mission, the organization does set musical standards. Each chapter has a professional choir conductor. Blegen is executive director of Seattle’s Choral Arts Northwest and runs the Great Bend Center for Music, of which the Olympic Mountain Beer Choir is but one small and silly part.

“If you want to see me do what I know how to do, you have to come to a ‘Messiah’ rehearsal,” Blegen said. “This I’m just doing for the fun of it, and I’m drinking right along with them.”

The Olympic Mountain chapter hasn’t limited itself to the repertoire in the hymnal, which focuses heavily on drinking songs. Its last gathering focused on music of the 1970s and filled Smoking Mo’s in Shelton with at least 100 people, Blegen said.

“A lot of that ’70s music is a lot harder to sing than we anticipated,” Blegen said. “We sang everything in the original keys. … Paul McCartney’s voice is really high, and Elton John’s ‘Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road’ was really high.”

Though meeting places are selected in part based on the availability of craft beer, the choir welcomes those who prefer other alcoholic beverages.

“We’re fairly agnostic about drinking,” Blegen said. “Whatever it takes to get you singing out loud.”

Of course, no alcohol is needed to have a good time. Blegen’s 6-year-old son, August, is a regular at Olympic Mountain Beer Choir events, which have so far been held in all-ages spaces.

“He loves the stuff in the Beer Choir Hymnal, particularly ‘Drunken Sailor,’ ” Blegen said.

Engelhardt, for his part, sees Beer Choir as just the beginning, one chosen because of his own passion for craft beer.

“My vision is that, together, we might find ways to infuse choral singing into several other tribes,” he wrote. “It would be amazing to see the rise of many other tribal choirs, such as Coffee Choir or Yoga Choir.”

This story was originally published August 18, 2017 at 6:01 AM with the headline "Only rule of Olympic Mountain Beer Choir: Just show up."