As a left brain/right brain type, I need to balance my engineering mind with creative efforts lest I go insane. Luckily, my side-hustle as a co-founder of a small brewery in Baltimore, Waverly Brewing Co. (launched Nov. 2015), allows me to volunteer my time on the weekend as beer taster/finance, tax, licensing guy/designer.
Aside from marketing materials and the like, the most fun comes in the form of giving new beers personality. Typically, co-founder and head brewer Roy Fisher designs a new beer with a theme/style in mind and nurtures it throughout the brewing cycle to get a feel for its personality.
Once near completion, Roy will write up a description for tasting notes and we’ll riff on names and oftentimes get my wife, Melissa, the brewery’s GM, involved. Since nearly all of our beers are served in house (well, they were prior to COVID-19), we can get crazy with the names…which is fun. From here, we have something akin to a creative brief to work with!
With name and brief in hand, I get crackin’ on the art. With in-house/onsite beers, I’ll make a 1080x1080 image that is simply our logo at the top with the art in the center and very large to display in Facebook and Instagram posts + on beer library/checkin site Untappd so folks can find it. I refer to this approach as the “Skateboard” as it pulls from the notion that skateboards put the brand (company) in the background and are forward with the individual product brand (usually a sponsored rider’s logo). This is essentially a framework.
The task at hand is to create a logo lettering treatment and an image that pulls the theme through. Typically, I’ll sketch out an idea and look for stock images to license and alter in Illustrator (usually to the point where it’s a new creation), draw a new piece of art, etc., to get the end result. In the case of our core beers — those that we make and always keep on tap (there are 4), I’ll hire a local artist to interpret the brand so it’s 100% unique and, frankly, a professional fine artist will be better than my attempt. Point being, those core beers deserve an expert touch.
The pandemic forced our business to change overnight. 99% of our sales were direct-to-consumer onsite in our taproom, meaning, we make the beers — typically 8–12 on tap — in the back brewery, 10 kegs at a time by hand, and serve them in our bar-ish front of the house. Suddenly, we had to be pickup only and had to adapt. In business for 5 years, we never canned our beers because our niche was draft with a small subset filling Growlers (64oz glass or aluminum containers with a screw top) or Crowlers (32oz cans sealed via a special machine — https://www.thegrowlerguys.com/the-new-crowler-can-your-draft-beer/) on-demand to go. In April, we decided that we’d get 3 of our beers canned to address our new pickup/to-go only model courtesy of a cool segment of the beer biz called mobile canning (canning lines are quite expensive). We partnered with Iron Heart Canning — https://www.ironheartcanning.com/ — they were excellent to work with with white glove service the entire way. It’s wild — a big box truck shows up at 6AM and rolls a canning machine into the brewery, hooks up to beer tanks, and rips through it all in 4–5 hours. All we have to supply is the beer and labels to be applied via a special machine.
Wait…a label on a can? Yep. Small breweries like ours can’t afford, nor require, a semi truck full of screen printed cans. Further, independent breweries like making one-offs/small runs, so, labels on cans have evolved to meet this demand. As a bonus, there is less waste in the form of printed cans. The labels are a plastic compound that can withstand heat/cold and touch and look pretty darn good. We used Iron Heart’s preferred partner, InTouch (https://intouchlabels.com/), who were just as great to work with as Iron Heart. They walked this noob through the whole process, and it was seamless.
We needed a framework to carry over the “skateboard” notion that was true to what our brand has become. Given our logo is horizontal, we have stickers that are a rectangle with the logo usually in white, so I wanted to carry through the sticker while giving room for the main beer brand. Also, to cut down on waste, can be cut and used as stickers after canning. The problem is, it looked weird horizontal, so I flipped it and did the same with the legal bits and such. Traditional can art and beer labels only give you around 2.5 inches of space to get your point across…and we have more to say than that!
Sideways as a function, but, also, so you can read it a few different ways. Another intent is that the label can stretch across 2 cans when facing out so you’ll get the WBC logo and beer brand (if faced correctly) and across 3 cans when sitting on a shelf sideways to get the full effect.
First up is our top selling core beer, Golden Sombrero. Our description on Untappd reads “The easy drinking, all-purpose lighter option in our arsenal, Golden Sombrero is an ideal session offering, or a great introduction for the craft beer rookie. It’s a balanced, crisp and refreshing blonde ale with a touch of sweetness.” Being a core beer, a while back we commissioned local artist/musician/pro skater Alex Hagen (@hagenthepagan on Instagram) to craft the beer’s brand. Alex nailed the spirit of the beer and a nod to the name, a baseball reference for when a player strikes out 4 times. Translating the great logo work by Alex into the new framework was a matter of adding some colors and texture:
For Beer #2, what fun would a new venture like canning be without some risk? Roy decided to make an entirely new single-hopped IPA (https://brooklynbrewshop.com/blogs/themash/hop-profile-simcoe#:~:text=First%20cultivated%20in%202000%20by,after%20hops%20in%20craft%20brewing), called Simcoexistence. Roy and assistant brewer Chris labored over it and the result is stellar. The Untappd description is “Simcoe, Simcoe and more Simcoe! Did we mention Simcoe? A magical blend of citrus and pine that showcases the American dry-hopped philosophy. 6.8% ABV.” How do you embody a flavor? It’s very bold — kinda out there — but balanced. Of course, it MUST be neon then. I licensed a series of antiquity busts to get an other-world feel and mashed it up with a hand-drawn groovy hop cone. Simcoexistence was our fastest seller, and is now in its second canning run, and doubled up at that.
Our next entry was an easy-drinking light lager — a tribute to the old school beers of yesteryear that went great by the bucket with steamed crabs. We call the beer Pulaski in homage to the best band you never heard from Baltimore that Roy and I played with in a former life. I designed the logo hungover in a hotel in Lisbon (a story for another time) a while back, so, it just needed some tweaks to be dropped in.
Our second canning run in September consisted of Simcoexistence doubled up, as mentioned, and two new beers (established but new for canning); No Kings American Pale Ale and Blackberry G’OAT Sour Ale. No Kings is a cornerstone beer — a perennial top seller — and Blackberry G’OAT is part of a series of sours made with different seasonal fruits.
For No Kings’ status as a core beer, we tapped Alex Hagen again to design the logo a bit ago to get the feel of an old concert t-shirt. No Kings is crisp and easy drinking, therefore, it’s something you should have in your hand while enjoying loud rock music. The Untappd description is “Waverly Brewing’s flagship Pale Ale is bursting with bold and citrusy hops from the American Northwest. With just enough bitterness to balance the malt’s sweetness, this brewery favorite has moments of tangerine and pine.” Alex crushed the design requirement and made my job so much easier here as well. For this canning iteration, Roy decided to tweak the recipe and make it a tad bit drier/crisper plus he added all “C” hops to make it a bit more complex but not over bearing. I felt the black/black was needed and had this label printed on matte stock vs. the glossy the others got. The matte helps it feel good in your hand, where it belongs.
Our final label is, well, very special. Our G’OAT series has been around a few years now and is popular amongst sour seekers. We add oats to the mash — hence the ‘OAT- to give a creamier mouthfeel, and add a touch of lactose to balance against the acidity of the kettle-souring process. The wort is transferred to the kettle and pitched with lactobacillus (the culture used to make yogurt) then left to sit for 48 hours. The end result is a beer that is not too sour and works very well with seasonal fruits such as pear, apricot and various berries. As part of a series, there wasn’t a “core” artistic component, so to speak. It was a series, so I needed a framework where the color scheme is easily changed to reflect the fruit used and that’s how we ended up with a cool goat character I licensed + plopped shades on.
Roy and Chris tweaked the ol’ G’OAT to make it smoother, a bit less alcohol, and, well, more expensive to make because of the refinements. G’OAT was growing up and getting sophisticated! Still a series, I needed to make it work with color changes while reflecting his new uptown demeanor and description: “Giveth credence unto the great and horned one! Gaze passionately into purple pupils of puréed blackberry providence! Blackberry Kettle Sour 6.5% ABV / Contains lactose.” I stumbled upon a cool background pattern I could license and easily change colors so, there was that. I needed a mature goat figure next, so I went down the path of just a shadow/cutout. When I presented this idea to Roy and Melissa, I was told “it’s lame”…and they were correct. I suggested we use another artist friend but Roy informed me that he was jammed up. A few minutes later, Roy, with so much invested in this beer, shot back this crude but brilliant pen rendering capture on his phone:
I knew now what I had to do; pull Roy’s drawing (scrawling?) into Illustrator, color it, and call it a day. A design fit for an amazingly complex but balanced fruity sour thing that quenches your thirst while making you make that very face:
Well, there you have it — a glimpse into my glamorous craft beer lifestyle. Design should have a purpose, but most of all, be fun and convey something. This approach — the “skateboard” framework — has allowed me to rapidly put labels and designs together while collaborating with brewers, artists and general managers. Go forth and create…with a few beers by your side.
