5 BREWERIES WITH BRILLIANT VISUAL BRANDING

Kindsey: One of the things I love about Rhinegeist is their consistency. The only thing they change with their cans is the color to match the style of beer. If you were to take the logo and words off a Rhinegeist beer, I would recognize the can right away. When it comes to marketing and brand awareness, consistency is so important. Rhinegeist has mastered this so much that there is a sort of comfort in drinking their beer.

Nick: Kindsey’s observation is spot on. Rhinegeist might have the best visual brand in craft beer. I also have a personal soft spot for them due to my love of all things spooky. Skull logo? “Ghost of the Rhine”? Great beer? Yes, please.

Blake: I agree with Kindsey. The Rhinegeist brand is rock solid, and a great example of the level of consistency you want your brand to possess. The design is minimal, but powerful and easily recognizable. This is another great example of a product that people will buy based on first impressions. A++.

Kindsey: Besides making great beer, one of the reasons I love SweetWater is their effort to protect the environment and our water. SweetWater started the “Save Our Water” initiative as a way to give back to something that is important to them, keeping waters clean. There is nothing better than being able to drink beer and give back at the same time. When brands have a purpose or reason behind their products, people are more likely to buy or consume again. SweetWater’s initiatives to keep water clean gets people to buy their beer without really saying “buy our beer.”

Nick: As much as marketing people harp about brand consistency, I think SweetWater would actually be well-served to shake things up a little bit. I’d like to see what they could do within their fishing theme, without printing the same art on every can.

Blake: Not being much of an angler, the fishing motif doesn’t really resonate with me. However, I’m a fan of both their IPA and their Pineapple IPA, so that won’t keep me from overlooking that summer variety pack from time to time. Visually, they do start to push the boundaries with some creative designs on their tall-boys. Unfortunately, we have yet to see the tall-boys on our shelves. Hope they bring one of those brews this weekend!

Kindsey: One of the many things I love about Against the Grain is the six characters they created for their beers: Hop, Smoke, Dark, Malt, Session and Whim. Every beer they brew is categorized under one of these characters. Everything from the name of the beer to the packaging of the can is a representation of that character. And in their taproom, they always have a beer from each character on tap.

Nick: These guys really have it all: great beer, equally good food, and killer art. The use of the six characters as a categorizing device is slick and fun, and builds the brand’s personality. What is especially impressive is how the actual brewery makes the brand manifest in the real world. The decor and architecture make stepping into the brewery really feel like stepping into the world that Hop, Smoke, and the others live in. Well, maybe the brewery is a little less grotesque than its art.

Blake: This beer could be terrible and I would still buy it based on the packaging alone. Each design is a work of thoughtful art packed with subtleties and nuances that I don’t even understand, nor am I meant to, but still, I am drawn to each and every one. Hands down one of the best brands in the brew business in my humble opinion.

Kindsey: I really don’t understand some of 3 Floyds packaging and I think that’s the reason it’s so popular.  No one else has packaging like them and that works for the brand they created. There might be a meaning behind each design and its connection to the beer, but I can’t tell. For me it’s a guessing game as to why that design was chosen. I always lose.

Nick: 3 Floyds is definitely one of my favorite breweries, between the sheer quality of the product and the sweet sci-fi and fantasy themes in a lot of their naming and design. They can be kind of all over the place in terms of style, but I think the quality of the beer carries them through no matter what. And even if they do deviate from their standard a lot, it is a strong one, with their psychedelic Heavy Metal-esque labels and over-the-top sci-fi names (see: Necron99 and Lazersnake). They live the brand too; just look at their collaboration with the grindcore band Pig Destroyer, a pale ale called Permanent Funeral. They really speak to the nerd in me.

Blake: I have long been a fan of 3 Floyds’ creative brews and their innovative design, which largely can be credited to their design group, Zimmer Design. They never put themselves in a box and seem to draw inspiration from everything around them. Including, as Nick noted, METAL. I’m always eager to get my hands on some Zombie Dust when it’s available. And, as a fan of puns, I sincerely appreciated their Floy Division series.