This isn’t your average opera—put down those pearls and pick up an ice-cold beer instead.

Houston performance group Hopera is ready to wow a new crowd of fans with the start of a new season this month. The group was founded as a way for friends in the arts, specifically the opera, to perform and extend their creativity beyond everyday life. Now, it’s a concert series with a newly gained nonprofit status that puts on shows at local breweries (hence the name) such as Eureka Heights, Saint Arnold, and 8th Wonder.

The 2024–25 season is technically the first official season for Hopera. One of its next performances, As One, follows the story of a transgender individual finding their place in the world. In partnership with the Montrose Center and made possible in part thanks to a grant from the city, the performance will take place at Eureka Heights on November 18 at 7pm.

The idea for Hopera first began during the pandemic, when Megan Berti, Hopera’s artistic director and founder, was a bartender at the now-closed craft bar Drink of Ages Pub. Ironically, due to rent issues, the bar shut down a week before the pandemic shook up everyone’s lives. But before the closure, Berti was in discussions with the owner about potentially merging the art of opera with beer, as the bar already served as a venue for punk concerts.

“I mean, it was kind of funny, because I would be bartending and people would ask me what I did when I wasn’t bartending, and I would say ‘I’m an opera singer,’” Berti says. “They would laugh because they assumed I was joking.”

This inspired her to press her boss about the potential to introduce other types of music to the bar. With an opera singer on staff and a love for craft beer, the name Hopera was only right, but with Drink of Ages closing and the pandemic, it was put on hold. Coming out of the pandemic, Berti and other art folks were itching to get back to performing, so with the Hopera idea still in her mind, she reached out to her brewery connections.

Many of Hopera’s members are professional artists, and some are even regular singers with Houston Grand Opera. But the goal of the group goes beyond performing. Berti says they want to dispel the stereotype typically associated with opera, such as the fanciness of it all.

“The US has created more new opera in the last 100 years than every other country combined,” she says. “There are tons of new operas out there, but it isn’t at the forefront of people’s minds. We want to draw attention to the fact that art is still happening. Opera is still happening. And it’s not just the stereotype you think of. It’s for all people. You can go to the opera, even if you have tattoos up to your neck.”

Hopera’s performances generally fall into two buckets: what they call “pint-sized performances” (get it?), which are shorter recital concerts, and series concerts, which are about 50 to 75 minutes long. And it might be weird to imagine your standard opera in a brewery, but Berti says the group always tries to put a fun, funky twist on it. They’ll even translate some to English to help the audience get a better understanding of the performance.

So how do the hops come in? For each performance, the group works with the host brewery to find the right pairings to fit the vibe of the opera. For As One, Eureka Heights will have a special release called the Sky Screamer, a medium-bodied bock-style beer made with German malt and caramel malt, with aromas and flavors of toffee, toasted bread, caramel, and dark plum. For anyone who’s been around long enough to remember the AstroWorld theme park, yes, it’s in reference to the ride. The Sky Screamer will be available on tap and in a can with a singing dragon on it. Anyone who buys a ticket to the Hopera show will have guaranteed access to the limited release drink.

Coincidentally, Eureka Heights brewed a pineapple blonde ale earlier this year also called As One, which will be available in honor of the November performance. This beer was created in collaboration with brewers in Austin as an olive branch for the BIPOC community, and it felt appropriate for it to be an olive branch for the LGBTQ+ community, too.

“The more inclusion the better,” Berti says.

The group doesn’t just pair beers with its series concerts—the pint-sized performances also join in on the fun. In February 2025, Hopera will debut Flights of Fancy, where the sets of music will be paired with different beers. The recital will be performed at three different breweries—Equal Parts, Eureka Heights, and Saint Arnold—so the beer will vary depending on which venue attendees go to, but that just means a diverse experience for anyone who attends all three.

Berti says they will pair a lighter beer like a pilsner or a hefeweizen with a lighter, fluffy song. For the dramatic traditional operas, the beer could be something like an imperial stout. Another fun potential: pairing the beer’s origin with the language a performance is in.

As for how the Hopera flights come to be, Berti says it’s a 50-50 collaboration with the breweries. The group is usually presented with enough options to make an educated pairing based on the performance.

Casey Motes, cofounder of Eureka Heights, says the brewery was first introduced to the group a few years back during a neighborhood event in the Heights, but what really fueled the fire for the partnership with Hopera was a beer they produced: Cosmic Opera. This, of course, caught the eye of the folks at Hopera.

Motes says Eureka Heights is always trying to be involved with the community, creating unique experiences for its regulars and as a way to bring in new clientele, so working with Hopera felt like a great fit.

When pairing a beer with a Hopera show, Motes says they’ll first have a discussion about the performance itself, its mood and overtones, which helps give them an idea of beers to highlight at the brewery. Sometimes, Eureka Heights will pull barrel-aged beers that aren’t released from the back specially for performances.

Hopera will sometimes hold a performance on a day that the brewery isn’t typically open as a structured ticketed event, while others are a tad more informal.

“Basically, our tap room will be open before and during the performance for people to grab a drink and hang out and they’ll settle in, we’ll have a stage area and a seating area, then [they] go in and watch amazing performers with a bunch of beer cans and shiny fermenters in the background,” Motes says.

Aligning with the goal of Hopera, Motes notes that hosting the performances at Eureka Heights has been a cool way to introduce a new experience to guests, while also giving people who are already fans of the opera a new way to experience it. 

Berti says the group would eventually like to extend its footprint with performances at different breweries in the suburbs.

“It’s likely we have untapped audiences [in the suburbs],” Berti says. “It’s far enough away that there’s probably people who wouldn’t take the trek into town to Houston Grand Opera unless they saw something like Hopera to get them interested in the first place.”

To check out upcoming Hopera performances, visit the website’s calendar page.