I sure can’t speak for all of you, but from the perspective of your hard-working blogger, it’s already been a LOOOOONG week. And it ain’t over yet. And that’s OK because radio people, by nature, are strong, resilient, innovative, and driven.
And those are valuable qualities because the radio business has become much more complex in recent years, fraught with more “hazards” and “speed bumps” than ever before. What was once a very simple business with high margins and very little competition has morphed into just the opposite. And yet as a client who’s also a station owner confided to me the other day, “You know, it still works.” And he’s right. People are still listening, and the right message at the right time delivers customers and can make a client a nice hunk of change.
Maybe so, but even the small stuff has become, at times, stressful. It makes you want to sit down, take a breather, collect yourself, and pour yourself a cold one. A beer, that is.
Unfortunately, while I know a little about a lot of things, beer is not one of them. But thanks to friends like Dr. Ed Cohen who knows a thing or two about hops and lager, today’s #TBT blog post warmed many of your hearts three years ago this month.
Little did I know when I wrote this post that a friendly beer can work wonders on our psyches and our souls. So while you may be reading this post over breakfast or some other time when drinking might not make sense, remember that it IS 5 o’clock somewhere. And that beer and radio may be more connected than you think. – FJ
March 2022
Like everything else in the world, there have big changes brewing in the beer market. Traditional brands such as Budweiser and Miller are out – craft beer is in. And the number of local breweries making their own unique concoctions has risen dramatically over the past decade or more.
This has led to something of a crisis in the craft beer marketplace – coming up with a clever name for your libation. A recent story on AmericanCraftBeer.com nailed it – “22 Craft Beer Names That Made Us Laugh.” (Yes, there’s a morning show bit here.)
Among the best handles: Hazed & Infused Pale Ale from Colorado’s Boulder Beer Company, Light My Friar from Florida’s American Icon Brewery, and Mass Whole Lager made by the Wormtown Brewery in Massachusetts.
There are so many breweries that Artificial Intelligence has found its way into the naming process. Researcher Janelle Shane created a dataset of hundreds of thousands of beer names and let the algorithm do its thing.
AI did OK – names Cherry Trout Stout, Third Danger, and Dankering are clever, but they can’t touch the turn of a word we humans can dream up, especially after a lager – or three.
And that’s probably when my consummate “beer hunter,” Dr. Ed Cohen, excitedly reached out to the JacoBLOG assignment desk.
Ed’s revelation – music and radio play a bigger role in beer naming rights than you’d
might think. He found an IPA called Classic Rock (Ghost 1146) brewed by Adroit Theory, a micro brewery in Purcellville, VA.
The design of the logo looks more like a Yes album than a beer. The beverage is in Adroit Theory’s oat cream series, described as “a rich, malt backbone overloaded with oats for satisfying for a silky, sweet body. Heavily dry-hopped for aromas of passion fruit, candied peaches, and crushed grapes.”
And all this time you’ve been listening to Classic Rock rather than drinking it. More information on this timeless libation is available here.
But that wasn’t Ed’s biggest discovery in his quest to find impressively cool beer names.
How about Frequency Modulation, the produce of Kindred Spirit Brewing Company in Richmond, Virginia (est. 2016). These guys obviously have a love for those “invisible airwaves crackling with life.”
And check out this hazy IPA’s logo.
But wait, there’s more. Like a great FM station, this IPA has a surprise or two. You might have noticed the sub headline: “Playing with hops to create one hit wonders!”
This craft brew is loving described by the Kindred Spirits folks (pictured). It’s lovingly
crafted, and a lot more interesting than “commercial-free music from the ’80s, ’90s, and Now!”
This brewery loves radio. You might have also noticed there’s a QR code. When you fire it up, you get the choice of four “stations” to select from, each positioned as “one-hit wonders.”
There are GIFs underneath the FM pushbuttons as well. Someone dreamed up a very cool brand, as well as clever, attractive packaging.
And that raises an interesting point. We oftentimes talk at industry gatherings – and certainly in this blog – about radio needing a serious transfusion of “cool.”
Here’s comes one of the hottest beverage categories – craft beer – that uses FM radio as its namesake, its brand, its mission.
And they’re apparently spending more time, effort, and yes, money promoting radio’s best known, most accessible, and most popular platform.
And they’re a small independent brewery in Virginia.
So, thanks to Adroit Theory for promoting my favorite radio format using a current trend to spread the word that timeless music and a great beverage just naturally go together.
Then there’s the folks at Kindred Spirits, unknowingly providing the radio broadcast industry with a fun new product that likely appeals to a younger,
more diverse audience than most radio stations do. And now they’re doing my marketing and promotion in a cooler environment than the radio broadcasting has done for years.
It sure is interesting that this brewer appears to be more enamored on FM radio than many of the reps tasked with selling it. Go figure.
And note Kindred Spirits isn’t jumping on the podcasting or streaming bandwagons. In fact, they’ve gone old school by promoting the quality, ubiquity, and cool factor that is FM radio. Bless them. I hope this new IPA becomes a huge mass appeal success with a big cume.
Frequency Modulation could become my favorite beverage, just as its namesake features my favorite entertainment, information, and personalities.
As for a sudsy libation called Amplitude Modulation, well we radio folks can dream, can’t we?
And by the way, it’s 5 o’clock somewhere.
I’ve got the next round.
And Dr. Ed, I owe you a beer.
Originally published by Jacobs Media
