We’ve seen songwriters and recording artists receive awards, get stars on walks of fame and win commissions and contests. This may be the first time we’ve seen an artist inspire her own beer. But this is how Logboat Brewing Co. of Columbia, MO is celebrating music these days.
This hoppy story started when renowned St. Louis roots rocker Beth Bombara launched a song-per-week challenge for herself and was looking for inspiration wherever she could find it. “News was popping up about the Chinese rocket debris,” she told WMOT, referencing the Long March booster that crashed harmlessly into the ocean in May. “And everybody was like, where's it gonna land? Where's it gonna re-enter the atmosphere? And so I thought, Oh, that's interesting.”
Out came “Space Junk,” a song about a relationship gone wrong and its random collateral damage. And that might have been it, but soon after that Logboat Brewing reached out to Bombara, explaining that they were releasing a series of special brews inspired by Missouri musicians and she’d been selected. They wanted to know if she had a song that could become a beer, and they loved the Space Junk concept, even though the song had yet to be released.
The beer arrived in the late summer, a juicy IPA with graphics on the can depicting Bombara’s band as space aliens. Her husband Kit Hamon is the bass player alien in shades and a trucker hat. Mike Schurk is the drummer alien, Sam Gregg the guitarist. The song eventually got cut and released as a single and video in late October, and you can check it out below.
Bombara, a Michigan native, launched her touring life as a band member for songwriter Samantha Crain. She kicked off her solo career in about 2007 following her move to St. Louis. She’s released seven recordings and been named best songwriter or Americana artist three times by the city’s Riverfront Times. A new album is in the works for the summer of 2022.
The beer was one of those out-of-the-blue larks that helps make up for the toil of being an independent artist in challenging times. Just fun, Bombara said. “They're being creative on the beer level, and trying to do some new, interesting things. And what better pairing to do that (than) with musicians who are also being creative in their own way?”
