Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
Figueroa Mountain has performed a label refresh of their beer line-up and it looks good. Vibrant colors, good font choices and art but take a look at the right side of the line…
…that is Hiker’s High Hazy IPA – a new “bright and tropical IPA that’s as hazy as those foggy mornings at the top of your favorite peak. The new 6.8% beer is now available in 6-packs of 12oz cans throughout the state”, as well as at their other California locations, my closest is Westlake Village.
NoHo bottle shop, Hop Merchants harnessed the opinions of the interwebs to determine March Madness bracket style, the best can label currently out there…
I voted in a few of the rounds but my choice did not make it far, instead, the winner was…
…which to me looks more candy wrapper than beer label art. Brouwerij West, El Segundo and others like Highland Park and Los Angeles Ale Works had better art in my humble opinion.
That said, I hope that Hop Merchants does this again next yeat.
I am a fan of the clever wordplay on a beer label but I truly prefer when it has a second or third layer to it. Hence my enjoyment of…
…Draftwerk from Chapman Crafted. You could just swap the one word out but it is better with the tie design and the beer style choice. Well done to keep pushing the joke.
The whole photoshop phishbowl doesn’t do this new Helles Lager label from Brouwerij West justice. Of all the cool BW labels, the fish really pops into three dimensions. The blue rocks at the bottom really tie it together.
It is hard to keep up with all the new beer releases. Sometimes you just have to filter to style or hop or…
…the color green. It is my wife’s favorite color so it now catches my eye as well and these two LA breweries are using it very well. Crac Brewery has a dramatic two tone look for a Tequila barrel-aged Gose with a clever name. Has a blade like look down the middle which accentuates the font.
Brouwerij West has taken their Popfuji pilsner and brand extended it for the Nelson hop. Replacing the Pop yellow with, again, two-tone green. The slight name change with the color swap is a nice way to create a beer series.
I am going to reverse tack and talk about a label that doesn’t work for me….
Now the color is fine and I like the verticality in the beer name. But that is really about all I like. Since this is a three part hop harmony, the fact that the other two logos are stuck on a small drum space in black and white irks me especially when the main artistic elements take up space and are not what I call my type of art. Also, what is up with that forested mountain? It seems to be in another style of drawing than the musical birds. Maybe just the penguin playing drums with larger logos would not have been as confusing.
It is not too often that I can celebrate both a label design and a saison but Brouwerij West can make both happen.
Here are the details… “Time Scoop is a classic non-sour saison, brewed with malted barley, raw spelt, Pacifica and Wai-iti hops from New Zealand. It is full of tropical fruit aroma, fresh sea air and a dry finish that will leave you wanting another of these can conditioned gems.”
Generally, I am not a fan of IP appropriation but in this case, Long Beach Beer Lab has done a great job melding their style and signature animal to great Bond affect. Reminds me more of Pink Panther in that way.
This shout out is for the beers themselves over the labels Anyone that uses Sorrel in a beer and then turns around and does a coffee Schwarzbier is to be commended. Thanks Guinness – Open Gate.
Readers of the blog know that I am an appreciator of fine label design and that I am wary when a brewery creates a a new brand.
Those two worlds collide with this very strange hazy IPA label from Van Nuys Beer Co. (a MacLeod Ales younger sibling).
The shopping cart plus the fog are creepy and then the yellow dots add a layer of modern art meets Brouwerij West to leave an overall eye catching label. I half expect a grocery bag to be pushed by the wind into the frame and then gust away.
You can say the name of this Hefeweizen from Burbank’s Trustworthy Brewing in a flat map app voice or remember back to the days of paper Thomas Guides. Either way, for our freeway pocked landscape, that is a great name.
Speaking of iconic Los Angeles, you don’t rank very many people higher than Vin Scully, and I don’t even like baseball. But this Topa Topa and Tarantula Hill Hazy DIPA has a fantastic name…
