This Band Went to a Brewery to Release Their Album and Created a Beer to Go With It

A brewer just outside of Boston, Aeronaut Brewing, collaborated with a rock band, The Lights Out, to do just that. The co-branded beer, deemed “T.R.I.P.,” which is short for “The Reckonings in Pandimensionality,” is packaged with instructions for drinkers to tweet #TRIPME to @TheLightsOut and @AeronautBrewing to listen to the album, which is out today.

“The Lights Out wrote an album about parallel realities, and instead of taking it to a record label, we brought it to a brewery instead,” said Adam Ritchie, guitarist for The Lights Out. “It’s the first time in either beer or music that a new studio album is being released on a craft beer can.”

The album’s hashtag “triggers a message that tells the drinker what an alternate reflection of them is doing right now in a parallel universe, along with a link to the album,” explained Ritchie. “The beer fuels a drinker’s trip through the multiverse, and the album is the soundtrack to that journey. The reason we’re releasing T.R.I.P. on a beer is to create a full sensory experience.”

To create the beer, the band gave Aeronaut a rough cut of the album. From there, “we set out to create a beer that would be adventure fuel, and match the themes of the record,” said Ben Holmes, Aeronaut CEO. “A project like this required the creative conceptualization, design and construction of new kind of beer, which would be adequately powerful in flavor and aroma to awe the senses even as they were overwhelmed by the certain rigors of traveling between universes.”

Added Ritchie: “You’re [experiencing the] sound from the album, visual from our wearable light show and taste from the beer. We also wanted to reintroduce a physical aspect to the discovery of new music. Beer fans are explorers, and while people may not be going to the record store as much to learn about new bands, they’re going to the beer store to get turned on to new beers every weekend. We’re creating a mini-quest, and the prize at the end is something you can hold, hear and drink.”

Check out what the co-branded promotional stunt looks like below: