Got Beer? Want to Know a Secret? One sip of Proclamation’s homage, and all will be revealed

For the third year in a row, Altered Reality Entertainment has partnered with a local brewery to create the official beer of Rhode Island Comic Con. The previous two incarnations were produced by Bucket Brewery of Pawtucket, but since their unfortunate demise, the malt-masters at Proclamation stepped in. The result of this partnership is the soon-to-be-released Secret Code, a pale ale that has a secret hidden away, much like a powerful alter-ego lurking beneath the buttoned-up exterior of a mild-mannered journalist.

I hopped in the car and buzzed over to Proclamation’s brewery to learn more about this year’s brew, and met with Dave Witham, who spun an amazing story.

“Brian Colton [of Altered Reality Entertainment] stops in a lot. He’s sort of an occasional regular. He reached out to us,” Witham said. “We wanted to do something that fits the bill. You don’t want to make an IPA and just slap a Comic Con label on it.”

“Right after I came on at Altered Reality,” said Colton, “I asked them if they were going to be doing a beer this year. And of course, they said no, because Bucket Brewery had just gone out of business and they’d done it the two previous years. They said that was one of the things they wanted me to work on. So I reached out to Dave, who I’ve known for many years, and he loved it. He’ll be the first to say that they’re all a bunch of nerds over there at the brewery, so they took it and really ran with it.”

“Not a lot of people [at Comic Con] are necessarily going to be beer people, so we wanted to make something that fit,” said Witham. “So we made a stripped-down kind of pale ale with blue butterfly pea flowers. They don’t impart much flavor, but depending on the amount you use and the steeping time, it’ll make the beer turn anywhere from a light blue to a grayish blue. We’re almost trying to make it look like a potion.

As for Comic Con, there is a grand plan afoot. The labels on the interesting-looking blue-purple pale ale will contain a secret code containing a special cipher. Five different blacklight stations will be placed around the convention center where people can view and decipher the secret code. Those who do will get a special code to use on the RI Comic Con app to redeem some pretty impressive prizes. The first 50 people to crack the code will get a gift basket that will include T-shirts, swag and VIP passes for RI Comic Con 2019.

“We have two versions, one for Comic Con and one for [the brewery], where there’s a secret code with special prizes redeemable at the brewery. We’re trying to make it fun,” said Witham. “Make it interactive and not just a normal beer.”

So look for Proclamation’s Secret Code at Rhode Island Comic Con, and maybe you’ll be able to crack the code and win some swag. Just a hint: The secret code is NOT “Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.”