Beer and music go hand-in-hand for audience members, but not many musicians tackle both the art of music and the art of brewing beer.

Keyboardist Kyle Hollingsworth excels at pleasing his fan base with delicious tastings of his own homemade brew, Hoppingsworth IPA, alongside his vibrant performances.

“I try to tie in my love of home brew,” Hollingsworth said. “In Colorado, I got a brewery to make my own beer, and I put it out for shows.”

Since September, Hollingsworth has toured showcasing his passion of music and beer, but he has spent the majority of his career working with the jam band String Cheese Incident, which has been on hiatus since 2008. This gave him time to launch a solo career and work on other projects.

As an Avid fan of beer, Hollingsworth released Hoppingsworth at the time his new album, “Then There’s Now,” hit circulation.

“It’s a very personal album. It reflects where I am in my life right now,” he said. “For example, I’m a new dad and it talks a lot about that.”

Hollingsworth said recording has been a labor of love and pain because of his perfectionist attitude.

“[I] go through a moment of being in love with what’s going on, but I go back to it a day later and I say, ‘This really sucks, I can’t release it.’ It’s generally a ping-pong game when I’m making an album.”

In college, Hollingsworth made a sudden shift from psychedelic rock to jazz piano.

“I grew up with a lot of rock influences like the Beatles, but in school I asked my teacher and wanted to be a better improvisational player.”

He would later expand those skills for String Cheese Incident.

“String Cheese let me understand that it was possible [to blend genres],” Hollingsworth said. “[It] taught me about living in the moment … and not being afraid of going anywhere particular. It let me be free for myself.”

As for an end to String Cheese’s current hiatus, its members plan to reunite one day.

“We are in the process of talking about how that can happen,” he said. “It’s on the horizon.”