On Tap: American Rock Band LIVE Releases Copper Ale

Hailing from Pennsylvania, the band LIVE were alternative rock giants with its seminal release record, Throwing Copper, that went eight times platinum and featured the juggernaut “Lightning Crashes.”

LIVE was one of the major success stories of the alternative world in the 90s. Now, 25 years later, LIVE is celebrating its milestone anniversary with its first craft beer, Throwing Copper Ale, in partnership with Southern California’s Alosta Brewing Co. The beer is a union of English Barley caramel toffee-like sweetness and the bitterness of Nobel hops.

American Rock Band LIVE

“Throwing Copper is a malty English style ale, also known to many as a copper ale,” explains Byron Fisher, co-founder of Alosta Brewing Co. “Being a fan of the band, I thought it would be cool to do a copper ale and call it ‘Throwing Copper.’ We were looking to do a small, local sort of thing, but once the band got ahold of it, it evolved into a much larger project.”

“It was a happy accident that we connected,” LIVE singer Ed Kowalczyk says of the partnership with the brewery. “It wasn’t something that we were naturally thinking about until they brought it up.”

For Kowalczyk, passion for the creative process is an art form. “When care and compassion and real feeling go into anything, it comes out in the product, whether it’s music or beer. You can sense immediately when you engage with it, that somebody put their soul into it. I have respect for anyone who puts a lot of soul into whatever it is because that communicates something.”

Throwing Copper Ale

“I have respect for anyone who puts a lot of soul into whatever it is because that communicates something.”
– LIVE singer Ed Kowalczyk