Danish audio experts B&O Play, quirky fun-loving sister company to the more serious Bang & Olufsen, has revealed a new music product. It’s not a Bluetooth speaker, or a pair of gorgeous headphones. It’s a beer. Not just any beer, but one infused with music played through the Beoplay A1 speaker. Don’t check your calendar, it really is the end of May, and not April 1.
Now that we’ve established this isn’t a joke (at least, we don’t think it is), here’s what you should know about what’s being called the Beobrew. B&O Play worked with craft brewery Mikkeller to investigate the effect music has on how beer tastes. We imagine a fair amount of beer was consumed before this question was asked in the first place. To find out, a Beoplay A1 speaker was connected to a classic third-generation iPod Nano, and submerged into a fermenting tank over the course of a two-week period.
Both B&O Play and Mikkeller collaborated with Danish musician, DJ, and radio host Le Gammeltoft to create a special playlist that may eventually influence the desired flavor. Unsurprisingly, the playlist has a distinct Danish flavor of its own, and includes October Dance, Balvig, Kikos, and Louis Petri. Mikkeller’s head brewer, Kyle Wolak, says music is the “fifth ingredient that takes the beer to a new level,” and talks about the vibrations encouraging the yeasts to, “produce more flavorful esters.”
We have yet to sip the Beobrew, so we can’t say how the music has influenced the beer’s taste; but Mikkeller describes it as refreshing, and calls it a 6.8 percent American-style IPA with a, “bright and aromatic taste with citrus fruit and floral notes.” Plus musical notes as well, one presumes. A special label, with a design by Philadelphia designer Keith Shore on it, will be pasted to the amber glass bottle.
Although the Beobrew sounds more like it should be the preferred tipple of Spinal Tap, you can actually try it out for yourself, either by visiting one of the Mikkeller bars in Denmark, German, Sweden, or Spain, or this summer in the United States at the Ace Hotel in New York and Los Angeles. Finally, if you’d rather take a sip of the musical beer in the comfort of your own home, Mikkeller will offer a mail-order service to Europe from its website soon.
