Bellon Daniel - Cool beer labels: the best art & design from breweries around the world

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by Greg Koch, CEO & Co-founder, Stone Brewing Co.

I love beer. No, not like your buddy who polishes off a 24-pack every weekend. Thats a love of drinking. I mean I love beer. Real beer. And not just the beer itself Im passionate about the idea of beer. Great beer represents a vast number of thingspassion, artistry, authenticity, creativity and honesty. Its all of this that fuels my fanaticism.

Im known for sometimes talking in terms evocative of a revolutionary whos joined the collective call for Freedom! and theres a reason for that: Ive joined the collective call for freedom of access to great beer. In fact, many consider me a zealot. It was my zealotry that led me to start Stone Brewing Co. with my business partner (and more importantly, our brewmaster), Steve Wagner, in 1996.

In the years prior, Id become fascinated by the art, integrity and inventiveness of small brewers. However, my journey down the rabbit hole of great beer actually took several years. Such was the reality of living in Los Angeles in the craft-beer-starved, pre-Internet days of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Back then, the call to action for better, higher quality beer came from only a small group, but it was a fierce and ardent assemblage. I heard that call, and it resonated with me. Yes, principally because I realized that the words awesome and beer could actually coexist in the same sentence, but also in part because of my discovery that Id been lied to when told that all that industrial, fizzy, yellow stuff was beer.

Now I knew better. I was in.

Since then, a lot has changed. The quantity and availability of quality ales and lagers has greatly increased. In todays world, I feel there is no excuse for a bar, restaurant or hotel not to make great choices available to me as a customer. With so much craft beer being produced, and such an undeniable demand for it, its more of a conscious choice for public venues not to participate, and if an establishment makes that decision, then Im going to make the same oneIm going elsewhere. I simply will not tolerate anyone offering me mediocrity when excellence is so frequently available. Period.

While many people still think of beer as the industrialized facsimile stuff, thats not beer. At least not to me. Nor should it be to anyone else. While we once had to settle, as a nation, we have broken free from the chains of low expectations, from the insulting insinuation by large corporations that we dont want or deserve better. At Stone, our focus has always been on providing something better, and we are proud to be part of an industry that shares that altruistic objective.

Nothing represents this new age in beer or the true passion and artistry of this industry like the beer label. Ironically, nothing represents the dark side better, either. Fortunately, this book focuses on the former. But allow me to digress, all the same. After all, having whetted your appetite for scandal, Im sure you want to know my thoughts on the latter.

Im not going to name names, but I will call out the dark side of the beer label: Lies. Im one to draw hard lines. I see little difference between a company knowingly allowing the public to believe something thats not true, often designing packaging and slogans that are specifically aimed at that goal and a company based on outright mistruths. All are intended to allow us to believe something thats not true.

Case in point: a label that suggests a beer is made somewhere its not. Or by a company its not. Or on an island its not. Or in an area code where its not. By a small, independent company, when its not. By a small brewery that doesnt actually exist except on a paper label. Thats horseshit! I believe the truth should be easy to understand and require no special knowledge to flush out.

Of course, those negatives, funnily enough, highlight whats great about beer labels, too. They can be pieces of art that convey far more than technical information. They are capable of conveying style, often a sense of place, an attitude, or a philosophy. I know beer labels that are nods to comic art, to death metal music and to mythology. And thats just from one brewery!

When it came time to create the labels for Stone, it was a laborious process. Looking back, the choices seem obvious, but at the time, it was painful. The main challenge was finding the right artist to help me create my vision. A big part of it was that I wasnt 100% sure just what that vision was. Minor detail. I had a variety of artists, all extremely talented, submit ideas that were so far off the mark Id wonder if theyd heard a single word Id said. Finally, after seeing some fantastic fantasy art at a local t-shirt screen printing shop, I asked for the name of the artist. Fortuitously, it was a local guy named Tom Matthews, and I was able to get his contact info.

Escondido, California

StoneBrewing.com

Tom was intrigued with the idea of creating an iconic gargoyle figure that would convey the weightiness of a time-worn guardian, the fierceness of a protector who wouldnt hesitate to leap to the defense of dearly held ideals, and the air of superior knowledge and taste embodied in his visage. It was a tall order, but Tom was up to it.

It was a birthing process. The number of iterations were voluminous, and Tom was intrepid in putting up with my constant feedback, which ranged from outright rejections to a steady flow of tweaks. But the results were worth the process and, in the end, we developed a character that clearly communicated, I stand for something, and DO NOT try to get me to settle for less. Ever.

I often joke that while Tom drew the gargoyle and I created the rest of the label, I can point to the rectangular square in which the gargoyle and text rested and the small squares creating very modest flourishes in the corners, and say, Yep. I drew that. A large rectangle and some small squaresmy, what talent I possess! But the truth was that the gargoyle didnt need anything other than a simple frame within which to rest. Yes, I created the font work as well (to the degree that you can call selecting the Castellar font creating), and arranged the overall layout of the original labels.