This article is presented by Largo Brewing and Pinnacle Drinks.

Musicians are legendary for their backstage catering requirements, but award-winning surf-rock band Lime Cordiale have taken it to the next level with the requirement that their very own beer be on ice when they play.

Fortunately, that requirement is easily satisfied now that the band, founded by brothers Oli and Louis Leimbach, has just released its very own beers to make it possible.

Their beers, released under the Largo Brewing brand, are a sessionable full-strength Clean Lager and a low-carb mid-strength lager, called The Dawdler.

The beer-loving brothers, who have always paid attention to the beer included in its band riders, say the flavour of their beer was driven by the desire to have the beer they wanted to drink backstage.

“We really wanted to create something that we could have backstage at festivals, and give away to other bands backstage,” Oli said.

“Something we could give away to our friends and family over summer and something that we would all enjoy.”

The band worked with a team of brewers who turned their vision into reality.

“Our brief was we wanted to have a lager, something that had sessionability to it,” Oli said.

“And they nailed it.”

Not only are they happy with the taste, the beers are also certified carbon neutral to reflect the brother’s desire to feel good about the choices they make.

The band has been around since 2009, launching at Avalon on Sydney’s northern beaches where Louis and Oli grew up surfing, very aware of the risks that global warming posed to their lifestyle.

“Some of our first gigs were to raise money for Sea Shepherd and an ocean charity called Living Ocean,” Oli said.

With that background, Oli said the band was very conscious of the carbon footprint its touring had.

“It does feel funny, sometimes, touring around the world with a heavy carbon foot footprint and then going back to a pretty quiet life on the coast on our farm which is a regenerative farm.”

He explained that this led the band to put in a lot of effort to offset their touring emissions, and want to apply that to their beer.

“When we were approached with this beer we hit a crossroads of, ‘of course, we want to make a beer, that’s so much fun, but are we creating this product that will have a carbon footprint?’”

To feel even better about the beer, they ensured it went through a rigorous process to become Carbon Neutral and get Climate Active certification.

Largo Brewing reduced carbon emissions in the brewing process by taking steps like skipping an energy-consuming filtration process, using a percentage of unmalted barley to save energy and working with a brewery that has solar panels on the roof and sends leftover grain to local cattle farmers.

The carbon that is still produced from creating Largo Brewing was calculated and offset by purchasing highly credible Australian Carbon Credit Units that are reducing or removing emissions elsewhere.

Largo Brewing partnered with Green Collar to invest in a project that is improving biodiversity and contributing to ecosystem regeneration within the Darling River Basin.

As a result the Largo Brewing range has been certified Carbon Neutral by Australia’s initiative for climate action Climate Active, one of the most rigorous Carbon Neutral certification authorities in the world.

“It’s such an involved process,” Oli explained. “We’ve been doing the same thing for our actual touring, doing the carbon calculation.”

“Calculating our tours and looking at things like ‘can we drive electric?’ and how much can we cut our carbon footprint down on this on this run.

“It made sense to do the same thing with our beer.”

The Largo brand has been developed in partnership with Pinnacle Drinks.

“The awesome thing about that they really gave us creative control from the very start,” Oli said.

“The name, the artwork, the taste of the beer. Even the launch party was on the northern beaches where we’re from.

“We’re really proud of the beer feel like it’s our own.”

Their involvement was down to the packaging, which was designed by Louis in linocut.

“I do the art for all of our albums, singles and posters which are always linocut,” Louis said. “It’s part of our Lime Cordiale brand.”

“I’ve always have wanted to design a beer label because they’re pretty pretty amazing.

“You walk into a bottle shop and especially in the specialty beer section and it’s quite a beautiful thing.”

He said that he has a little printing press he takes with him on tours to keep him occupied as they travel, and developed ten different artworks for the beer brand.

“It’s one of the most relaxing things, and it’s a great distraction,” Louis said.

“It stops you from getting nerves before a show or overthinking a show, and now it’s a beer label.”

Largo Brewing is on sale at BWS, Dan Murphy’s, Jimmy Brings and selected venues across the country.

Listen to Oli and Louis discuss the development of the beer on the Beer is a Conversation podcast.