Alien Ant Farm, Riverside’s Packinghouse Brewing Company collaborate on new beer

Alien Ant Farm will drop a new collaboration this week, but you won’t find this exclusive on Spotify or Tidal — the rock band has teamed up with Riverside’s Packinghouse Brewing Company for a new beer.

The double hazy IPA, dubbed “IPAAF,” is the result of a months-long partnership between the Riverside brewery and the alternative rock band, which started in Riverside. People will be able to pick up four-can packs from the brewery as of April 4.

Terry Corso, Alien Ant Farm’s guitarist, said the process has been an enjoyable experience, from devising the beer to helping add hops.

“We’ve been having fun with it,” Corso said. “Like I said, we’re definitely not manufacturers, we’re just musicians, but being musicians we know what we like to drink.”

Collaborating on a beer was a project the band had wanted to do for a while. Corso said the band even had the IPAAF name in mind before the partnership with Packinghouse began.

Helping to make the dream a reality was Esjay Jones, the band’s producer.

“She’s somebody that we started writing with a long time ago and she’s become not just a friend and family, but a fifth member of this band, and she kind of aligned the whole thing,” Corso said.

Ron Gomez, an owner and managing partner for the brewery, said he was contacted by Jones in the early fall and that the brewery met with the band to devise a game plan.

“Riverside’s a small town, and talking to people, we all know some of the same people so it just was a good fit for everybody,” Gomez said.

Corso said everyone in the band is into a good IPA so coming up with an IPA seemed like an easy choice. He said he wanted the beer to have a rye flavor because he really likes that in beer and whiskey.

The brewery came up with a small batch that members of the band got to taste. Corso described the beer as being cloudy and juicy with a hoppy overtone.

Later, when the actual batch of beer was being made, the band members added hops to it.

Though there were some plans in place for how to release the beer, Gomez said the novel coronavirus pandemic has upended them.

“Initially, we were going to have a concert at the brewery and release it that same day, but again, because of what’s occurring, we can’t do that,” Gomez said. “So we’re going to probably do that at a later date but since the beer is done and ready to go and obviously has a shelf life, we’re still planning on releasing it.”

People will be able to pick up cans from the brewery if they live in the local area, Gomez said, but the brewery is also working on getting the beer out to some other outlets so people further away from the brewery can also get some. Details on where else the beer can be ordered will be forthcoming on social media, Gomez said.

New music brewing

The arrival of the beer comes as the band is working on making new music.

Corso said the band was able to crank out four new songs earlier this year and that this was the first time in the while that they made songs they “were really in love with.”

“You’re always in love with everything, but these were songs that were just like, ‘OK, this is us and it sounds like us. This is the next step, this is the next progression for Alien Ant Farm musically,’” he said.

Corso said he hopes the band will be able to put out an album sometime this year, maybe by summer, but he can’t make any promises. He also said that with the coronavirus, the music making process has been a little compromised.

He said the band isn’t recording more songs for the album yet but they’re writing and working with each other through the internet. He said the band recently started using Zoom for conferencing.

“We’re just going to do what we can to keep the workflow going,” he said.

Corso said fans of the band can expect a little bit of a new sound. He said the tracks on the new album will be heavy, but also still catchy and accessible.

“Metalheads can listen to it, but probably the alternative kids can listen to it now,” he said, adding that the band has always kind of straddled that line anyway.

One constant across the albums, Corso said, has been lead singer Dryden Mitchell’s voice.

“I feel like we’re very fortunate that whatever we do stylistically, he’s that kind of link that makes you go, ‘oh this is Alien Ant Farm,’ whether it’s kind of like this Cuban reggae quasi jazz jam or it’s this kind of prog metal,” Corso said.

And when the new songs do come out, Corso has some thoughts on how you can listen to them.

“I suggest listening to them in a rad car stereo,” he said. “They sound huge.”

IPAAF 

Available: Saturday, April 4

Where: Packinghouse Brewing Company, 6421 Central Ave., Riverside; other vendors to be announced.

Information: alienantfarm.com, packinghousebeer.com, @packinghousebrewingco on Instagram.