Hold Everything!

If reducing your waste is one of your New Year’s resolutions, or if you simply like to tote your bottles of homebrew or craft beer in a stylish manner befitting of the glorious nectar within, this month’s innovations are designed for you: leather six-pack and four-pack bottle holders that can be used and enjoyed for generations to come.

The holders are the creation of Geoffrey Franklin, whom we have visited in this column before. He is a leather craftsman and beer fan who produces functional yet beautiful leather pieces out of his business, Walnut Studiolo, in Portland, Ore.

Franklin’s first piece we featured was his Can Cage, a rigid, leather beer can holder that clamps to a bike and keeps the beer steady even while riding off-road. There’s also a similar version for mason jars, a set of straps for growlers, and the 6-Pack Cinch, a leather piece that straps a regular six-pack to a bike’s frame for easy transport.

This time, Franklin, an eighth-generation Oregonian who worked with leather tack and tools while growing up on his family’s eastern Oregon farm, has created two leather “cartons” that can carry either six 12-ounce bottles or four 22-ounce bombers.

Both designs allow you to walk into your favorite bottle shop, brewery or tap house with a sturdy, reusable holder, so you can bring your beers home or to any event in classic style and without worrying about them dropping out of flimsy cardboard cartons.

The six-pack holder, which sells on Franklin’s etsy.com site (etsy.com/shop/WalnutStudiolo) for $65, is available in black or brown leather. Franklin calls it “The Spartan Carton” because it’s basically a stripped-down, minimalist beer bottle container. Composed of leather rings riveted together and riveted to a central masonite handle, The Spartan Carton is designed to complement the previously mentioned 6-Pack Cinch bicycle frame holder. It can connect to your bike via the cinch for easy commuting, or it can go solo and be carried by its durable handle. The minimal, clean design only weighs 10 ounces when empty, and is a mere 9 inches at its tallest dimension, making it easy to keep handy in a bag or backpack for easy access.

“I designed the leather rings to create a ‘basket’ around the masonite handle, and spaced wide enough to reveal the bottle labels,” Franklin says, ever-cognizant of style and the importance of showcasing the beers.

The counterpart four-pack holder that’s designed to carry larger, 22-ounce bottles and regular-sized wine bottles (or even Kleen Kanteen bottles) does not work with the bike cinch because the bottles are too tall. But it sports the same solid, sturdy design, and is also composed of leather rings riveted together and then riveted again to a central handle—this time, it’s wooden with hand-carved, ergonomic finger grips—fabricated to help hands carry the extra weight from the larger bottles. Available in black, dark brown and burgundy, the four-pack holder is sold on the etsy.com site for $60 and is about 12 inches high at its tallest. Made with the same goal of reduced weight for ease of transport, this model only weighs 2 ounces more than the smaller six-pack holder for a total of 12 ounces.

Because they are lovingly made of leather, these solid, reusable beer carriers are designed to hold up in the incessant rain of Franklin’s hometown—or any other inclement weather—meaning soggy cardboard holders that threaten to fall apart and put your bottles of beer in peril could be a thing of the past. And with Franklin’s classic design and sturdy construction, his holders also promise to be something that could be passed down for generations to come. ■