Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
I have mostly done hard pass when it has come to Kickstarter over the past 1/2 year. Too many gimmicky items or items that had surpassed their funding goal on Day 1.
But, since I love a good label, the 48 Beer Project caught my eye.
If this comes to pass, it will be a great look into the design process.
Coasters. Beer geeks have a ton of them. Usually the cardboard kind. They eventually fall apart and get tossed. But what if you could remember a favorite beer or brewery for a much longer time?
As if Firkfest wasn’t already great with the beer and the chili but then they had Nick Gingold with copies of California Brewmasters on hand but you could also get some high quality, SoCal made coasters. I even spied a Brew 102 coaster in the “classic” section. Check out Stella Divina for your next beer gift.
I got to taste my first Packinghouse beer which is semi-close (depending on freeway traffic) to L.A. while I was in Denver. I know it was a long way to fly for their beer but now it appears that a closer option may be at hand.
I mean bottles of both their stout and pale ale among others. Feel free to geek out on the labels like I did. (I seriously like to see new breweries in southern California)
Hopefully, some of these bottles will make their way out to Glendale and my ‘fridge.
One of the great pleasures of going through the Oxford Companion to Beer is finding little gems of information that you did not know about before and the latest one that I have found (I am only in the B section) is about this breweriana group by the name of the Labologists Society.
Here is a short bio from their website….“The common paper beer bottle label was first introduced when the heavy duty on glass was repealed. As a result bottled beers began to feature more prominently in the brewer’s repertoire. The label has come a long way since the original, small, simple, strikingly beautiful examples of the designers art began appearing around the 1840’s.
Although the collection has not been discovered yet, acquisitive individuals being a type always present in society, the first collector of beer bottle labels must have begun conserving labels from that time.
In 1911 a young collector called Norton Price remembered as a boy soaking labels (some now unique) from returned bottles in his father’s off-licence, and during both World Wars, when soldiers were forbidden to mention details of their postings in letters home, a simple beer bottle label from a local bar secured in a small album, served as an aide-memoir for future reference.
However it was not until 1958 when three label collectors got together, originally with financial support from Guinness Exports Ltd., Liverpool, that the Labologists Society was formed with the idea of uniting collectors world-wide. Today the interest in Labology is truly international with clubs and societies in the Americas, Australasia, the Far East and throughout Europe.”
They also host a yearly “Label of the Year” charity contest. A great way to highlight the art of the label and help some people out.
Their website is being worked on so I will be returning to see if the gallery is up because that would be a fun way to while away the time.