LOCAL EVENTS
Find local tunes and brews at Middleton
Catch a buzz and a boogie with a beer and a beat at Hops n’ Bops, a producer and beat maker showcase at Middleton Brewing. Local musicians Daniel Reinhuber and Mich D. White founded “andbops,” which is an electronic and beat maker collective that organizes showcases featuring local DJs, producers, and electronic musicians. The collective hosts showcases all over town including Beans and Bops at Wake the Dead and Hops n’ Bops at Middleton Brewing. The event included original music from Chief and TheDooms-DayDevice, Geoff B., Little Jack, Kinder, Kuvu, Sammy Xtreme, Summer Sleep and Sprrow. Guests enjoyed five hours full of electronic music spanning a variety of genres while sipping on local craft beer from Middleton Brewing and dining on made to order smash burgers.
Before the collective even had an official name, they started to organize showcases to give the beat making community an opportunity to perform and connect with an audience and each other. In September of 2023, Reinhuber and White invited local musicians to Wake the Dead Coffee House to hang out and play music.
“It was a lot of fun. It was just really cool to have that many like minded people in one space. Then at some point we were like, we should do this again,” Reinhuber said.
Above, Chief and TheDoomsDayDevice performed at Hops n’ Bops hosted by Middleton Brewing. Below, the famous smash burger at Hops n’ Bops made by the crew at Middleton Brewing. Bottom, TLittle Jack performed at Hops n’ Bops hosted by Middleton Brewing. Daily Record photos by Rebekah Porter
The group was inspired by an Austin based collective called Exploded Drawing, which throws their own electronic and beat music showcases. White had performed with the ATX collective earlier on in his music career and wanted to bring a version of that to San Marcos.
The event at Middleton featured a majority of San Marcos based artists as well as a few Austin musicians.
“Part of what we want to do is connect the local artists to people that are in Austin and more tapped in there, to give them opportunities to play shows out there,” Reinhuber said.
Middleton Brewing hosts Hops n’ Bops every other month, but the collective throws shows all over San Marcos.
“We want to sort of be mobile and move around because it’s fun to try different vibes at different venues,” Reinhuber said, adding that andbops is not limited to the 78666, having performed shows in Austin. “The idea is basically just to have a hub to showcase San Marcos artists.”
At the Middleton event guests had the opportunity to enjoy a homemade smash burger while listening to local beats. Reinhuber joked that “the burgers are fun because they’re almost a bigger draw than we are, but it exposes the people that come for the burgers to us.”
The group has had a great response from people not usually exposed to the electronic scene. “That’s actually the funny other side of it too is in a place like San Marcos people still will show up and be apprehensive about electronic musicians,” White added.
Throughout the show Reinhuber and White not only introduce each performer, but they let the audience know about the electronic music process as well as if an artist is DJing or playing their own music. They invite the audience into their world and have gotten a great response from people not usually exposed to electronic music. The collective showcases a wide variety of musicians, which dabble in multiple genres, so the crowd can experience a full spectrum of music.
“It happens to be that our core group is very stylistically different, so [the variety] is sort of baked in,” Reinhuber said.
The collective has a compilation album on bandcamp that showcases the variety of music made by the local artists.
“It was to be sort of a living document of the people that have played with us,” Reinhuber said.
One can find the album and information about their upcoming events on their instagram at @ andbops. Follow @middletonbrewing on instagram to keep up to date with their events and local brews.
