MILTON, Delaware — In celebration of Record Store Day, Dogfish Head is bringing independent beer and independent music together as they announce the release of a first-of-its-kind beer and vinyl collaboration with American rock icons, The Flaming Lips. Dropping on RSD (Saturday, April 21), The Flaming Lips will release a limited edition 7” called “The Story of Yum Yum and Dragon,” featuring two original songs inspired by the new Dogfish beer, Dragons & YumYums, a lip smackingly tart pale ale. Composed by Wayne Coyne, frontman for The Flaming Lips, the lyrics pay tribute to the colorful array of off-centered ingredients in the beer.
“Wayne and I, and our Dogfish and Lips co-conspirators, shared a goal of making this collaboration an epic, sensory enveloping experience at the intersection of creative beer paired with creative music,” said Sam Calagione, CEO and founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery. “There’ve been tons of iconic collaborations over the years, but we believe this is the first time a band has been so pivotal and deeply involved in the creation of the beer, the ingredients that were chosen, as well as authoring a song made specifically in tribute of the beer.”
The energy of the union inspired Coyne to use ingredients from the beer – dragonfruit and yumberries – as characters in the two songs on the record, “The Story of Yum Yum and Dragon” and “Pouring Beer in Your Ear.” Coyne used the dragonfruit and yumberry elements and transformed them into storyful lyrics in the song like, “Yum Yum and Dragon went out for a drive, but Yum Yum doesn’t have any eyes….Yum Yum and Dragon, they’re happy they’re friends…”
Along with the limited edition 7” release, Dogfish and The Flaming Lips will also unleash 100 translucent records filled with the actual Dragons & YumYums beer just before Record Store Day. The super collectible beer-filled vinyl will be available at special events nationwide leading up to and on April 21. Calagione shares, “As a raging beer geek with a music problem, I’m especially excited to enjoy a pint of Dragons & YumYums while spinning a beer-filled record from the Lips.”
Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips had this to say about the collaboration, “Working with Dogfish Head has been a meeting of two, seemingly, opposite product makers. We as, The Flaming Lips (being completely unaware of our branding and marketing potential) and them, Dogfish Head, (being sooo well branded I thought they made dog food, fish sauce, bongs AND beer)… turns out they, the Dogfish Head thought we, The Flaming Lips, were a well branded and marketed entity…they thought we were perhaps a cult, a cartoon, a religion, a candy company and an Art Rock Group…ha…so…Us coming together to make, what might be, the world’s first vinyl record filled with pink colored beer… is somehow… perfect!!”
Hitting retail shelves and taps from late March through August and packing an explosion of fruit in every sip, Dragons & YumYums is an intensely tropical, yet subtlety bitter ale brewed with a combination of dragonfruit, yumberry, passionfruit, pear juice and black carrot juice. Clocking in at 6.5% ABV, this light-bodied pale ale has a balanced sweetness, yet slightly resinous flavor, with piney aromas and a pink, blush-wine hue. The psychedelic influence of the label artwork, designed by Marq Spusta as part of Dogfish Head’s Off-Centered Art Series, was influenced by the legacy of the Flaming Lips and the culinary components in Dragons & YumYums shown through radiating lines, movement of fire, dancing lips, rainbows and bold pink colors.
For more information about Dragons & YumYums, “The Story of Yum Yum and Dragon” and events where the limited-edition beer-filled vinyl can be found visit dogfish.com\rsd.
For more information and The Flaming Lips brand licensing and consumer products, contact Alix Kram,Alix.Kram@wmg.com and Eleni Gregoriou, Eleni.Gregoriou@wmg.com.
The Flaming Lips are on tour now in support of their current Warner Bros. Records album, Oczy Mlody.
The Flaming Lips 2018 Tour Dates:
Mar 03 – Okeechobee, FL – Okeechobee Festival
Mar 05 – Athens, GA – Georgia Theatre
Mar 06 – Knoxville, TN – The Mill & Mine
Mar 07 – Birmingham, AL – Iron City
Mar 09 – Asheville, NC – Orange Peel
Mar 10 – Richmond, VA – The National
Mar 11 – Bensalem, PA – XCite Center at Parx Casino
May 06 – Memphis, TN – Beale Street Music Festival
May 31 – Jackson, WY – Jackson Hole Center for the Arts
June 02 – Eugene, OR – McDonald Theatre
June 03 – Seattle, WA – Upstream Music Fest + Summit
June 04 – Bonner, MT – Kettlehouse Amphitheater
June 06 – Garden City, ID – Revolution Concert House
June 07 – Ogden, UT – Ogden Amphitheatre
June 08 – Aspen, CO – Belly Up Aspen
June 22 – Saskatoon, SK / CAN – Sasktel Saskatchewan Jazz Fest
June 24 – Winnipeg, MB / CAN – Jazz Winnipeg @ Burton Cummings Theatre
July 20 – Cheshire, England – Bluedot 2018, Jodrell Bank
July 21 – London, England – Kaleidoscope Festival, Alexandra Palace
Nov 09 – Weissenhauser Strand, GER – Rolling Stone Weekender, Ferienpark
Nov 16 – Europa-Park, GER – Rolling Stone Park
About Dogfish Head:
Dogfish Head has proudly been focused on brewing beers with culinary ingredients outside the Reinheitsgebot since the day it opened as the smallest American craft brewery 22 years ago. Dogfish Head has grown into a top-20 craft brewery and has won numerous awards throughout the years including Wine Enthusiast’s 2015 Brewery of the Year and the James Beard Foundation Award for 2017 Outstanding Wine, Spirits, or Beer Professional. It is a 300+ coworker company based in Delaware with Dogfish Head Brewings & Eats, an off-centered brewpub and distillery, Chesapeake & Maine, a geographically enamored seafood restaurant, Dogfish Inn, a beer-themed inn on the harbor and Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, a production brewery and distillery featuring a tasting room and food truck. Dogfish Head supports the Independent Craft Brewing Seal, the definitive icon for American craft breweries to identify themselves to be independently-owned and carries the torch of transparency, brewing innovation and the freedom of choice originally forged by brewing community pioneers. Dogfish Head currently sells beer in 40 states and Washington D.C. and will expand into additional states in 2018. For more information, visit dogfish.com, Facebook: @dogfishheadbeer, Twitter: @dogfishbeer, and Instagram: dogfishhead.
About The Flaming Lips:
(Wayne Coyne, Steven Drozd and Michael Ivins), formed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1983 and have since become one of the most iconic, influential, unpredictable and vital forces in American rock music. During their tenure, their ever-evolving, GRAMMY Award-winning sound has become a genre unto itself and contains lush, multi-layered arrangements. Lyrically, their compositions reflect the light and dark in all of us and combined with bold experimental production that breathes life into their space-age-prog, punk pop that appeal to broad spectrum of music lovers around the globe. Known for their elaborate live stage shows The Lips have become such the ultimate live rock experience that Q Magazine and Rolling Stone named The Flaming Lips one of the “50 Bands to See Before You Die.” Their reputation as canny songwriters & great performers have made The LIPS an actively sought out collaborative entity who have participated in numerous, oddly diverse recorded and live performances that include Yoko Ono, David Lynch, Philip Glass, Bon Iver, Lightning Bolt, Coldplay, Beck, Nick Cave, Erykah Badu, Thievery Corporation, Grace Potter, The Chemical Brothers, Jim James, Miley Cyrus and many, many more. At present, The Lips are working on a series of reissues of the early works and looking forward to their next studio opus. The Lips continue to tour in support of their 14thand current Warner Bros. Records studio album Oczy Mlody in 2018.