Aernonaut Brewing packages full audio-visual experience with new beer

It is Packaging Week here on CBB. We have a bunch of packaging equipment features dropping this week, but we didn’t forget that a big part of packaging is marketing. Here’s an especially cool example of one brewery putting its beer into more than just a container.

Beer and music just go together. Whether it is bands collaborating with breweries on new beers, brewers branding a beer after their favorite tunes — or even breweries creating their own music — there are constant innovations happening that mesh craft beer and music. Here are some headlines to prove my statement.

A new project collaboration between The Lights Out, a music and light project that takes people on a journey through parallel worlds, and Aeronaut Brewing Co. is taking the beer/music tandem to the next level. The outcome is T.R.I.P., a sci-fi album and beer adventure.

Yes, sci-fi album and beer adventure

Breweries have added downloadable music to their packaging before, but this project goes even further, packaging their beer not just with aluminum, but with a full audio-visual presentation.

The album explores the idea that our observable universe is one of many — a multiverse — where everything possible exists somewhere. It was inspired by the theory that each of us has infinite reflections of ourselves, living alternate lives. Each song on the album was written as a report back from another reality visited by The Lights Out.

The beer is an Imperial Session IPA — a paradox in a can — representing the full range of possibilities, brought together in a supremely drinkable offering by the intrepid brewers at Aeronaut.

This fall, drinkers who purchase cans of T.R.I.P. beer will find instructions on the label to obtain a copy of the T.R.I.P. album, by taking an action on social media.

“The beer fuels your trip through the multiverse, and the album is the soundtrack to that journey,” said The Lights Out guitarist Adam Ritchie. “Aeronaut embraced the spirit of this album from the start and was the perfect co-pilot to help us bring T.R.I.P. into this reality.”

“We designed this beer to pair with the album,” said Aeronaut CEO Ben Holmes. “It’s packed with galaxy hops, clocks in at 7.5 percent ABV and is refreshing to drink.”

The beer’s artwork was created by Raul Gonzalez, and features the pandimensional pilot character from The Lights Out, and the band’s Color Machine — the vehicle that takes them between dimensions — flying through a wormhole.

“A fragmented and highly-competitive media landscape means bands need to come up with new ways to release material,” said Ulf Oesterle, chair of the Department of Music and Entertainment Industries at Syracuse University. “Most beer and brewery collaborations are with legacy acts like AC/DC, Kiss, Iron Maiden and Queen. None of them have used beer as a format to release a studio album. The Lights Out is venturing into new territory.”

Invention and performance are main ingredients of both The Lights Out and Aeronaut. For live performances of T.R.I.P., The Lights Out pioneered a wearable light show, synchronized with the music, and Aeronaut is earning a reputation for its live music showcases as much as for its experimental brewing.