A call for more subtle beer tshirts

The Venn diagram for this is small for me: a brewery I really love + minimalist design + doesn’t make me look like a tool. The only one I wear with any regularity is an all-black Other Half T-shirt with the logotype in all white across the chest.

 

One of my few brewery shirts has the statement "There's a lot to be said about head retention" across the front and the back has the brewery name in small font plus a rather large image of a beer in a pint glass with a math equation and related text describing the supposed half-life description of beer head. As an engineering geek I loved this shirt until I actually worked the stated equation and found out it had a serious math error.

 

This hat manufacturer is rather pricey (Ebbets), at least in terms of branding apparel for merchandising purposes. I'm actually kind of surprised it sold out so quickly, but it was also the neutral colorway (black hat with white logo). The non-neutral colorway was up when I visited the site a few hours after release. Between the neutral colorway, the quality materials, and the simple logo, it's a hat that could be worn with just about anything. Not something I could say for most branded apparel.

 

I prefer subtlety.

 

The only beer shirts I wear are the ones I got from working at breweries. I do have a couple New Trail hoodies I bought.

I don’t get all up in arms or judge based on what others wear. That’s just childlike.

 

A friend gave me an Alchemist T-shirt. It had the logo and "No Farms, No Beer" printed on it. You kind of have to be on the inside to know it's Alchemist, but there's no mistaking it's a beer shirt.

I wore the shirt in public one time and a guy at the store stopped me and said, "It's No Farms, No Food, not No Farms, No Beer." My reply was, "Beer is food." He walked away with a puzzled, "I think he's right" look on his face.

 

I'm all for more subtlety in craft beer, not just in shirts, but in flavors too. I would like to leave the, "HEY BRO, WE'RE TOTALLY NOT YOUR GRANDFATHER'S BEER *************" phase behind.

 

The OP's feelings definitely resonate with me. I have a shirt from On Tour Brewing that "appropriates" the Grateful Dead logo but replaces the lightning bolt with a stylized hop cone. It's likely sparked more conversations about the brewery than a shirt with their logo would. I don't mind being a walking billboard. I have a lot of swag from work, band t-shirts, geeky movie/television shirts, baseball/basketball/college gear, etc. I do want it to look good (i.e. not loud or obnoxious) and it helps if it's witty, clever, and not super popular.

 

Well, yeah - just like Col. Sander's recipe or the formula for Coca-Cola, no brewery is going to give away (or, in this case, even sell in the form of a T-Shirt) their secret.

 

For those who desire an extremely loud shirt with an extremely quiet beer reference, this is for you. I believe @jesskidden has the winter parka version.

 

I buy brewery shirts based on if I like the brewery and if I like the design. All my shirts are just the brewery or beer logo. They match the style of all my t shirts such as vans, volcom, RVCA etc. I pass on the shirts that have sayings like “in dog years I’ve only had 1 beer” lagunitas.

 

Have quite a few of these, and Dickies work shirts but don't find myself wearing these too often.

Gets into the concert T realm, where I just have too many of them and got no reason for them. Many of my GI migration week shirts have become work out shirts though, and/or painter shirts

 

I don't buy brewery shirts for the reason the OP said. I don't wear casual T-shirts much to begin with, and for the few I do have, I'm not going bother with anything that screams "craft beer guy"... It's not the sort of attention I am looking for.

Although, that shirt is fashionably loud, the brewery/beer aspect of it kind of subtle. The logo is small, and unless some one knows Bell's 3 bell logo, there's nothing else suggesting it's from a brewery.

Actually I think Bell's has several shirt options that that are more subtle. Edit to add link: https://store.bellsbeer.com/collections/sweaters-jackets

 

Yes! I just ordered a Chicken Choice Judy t-shirt to see if anyone gets the reference. Would totally wear a brewery shirt like that.

 

In a similar vein - I make the background for my zoom calls "the casting couch" - you know...

See who recognizes it. Body language always gives it away and they can't exactly explain how they do/know in a business meeting.

 

My Lost Nation T is my favorite. Really strikes good conversations (about 50/50 beer or politics). Both are fun to discuss especially in combo. Never got in any heated debates or rants either. People are generally good out there in the really world. Avoid social media (exception Beer Advocate of course).

 

This is my favorite brewery t-shirt for several reasons. One of the reasons is the subtlety of it. I agree - I wish more were like this.

Front:



Back:

 

My other big hobby besides beer is music. And the bands I like have big lot merchandise scenes. Essentially since it’s just fans selling home done merchandise, it’s not officially licensed and so most often doesn’t have band names or official logos on it. So instead it’s often takes on specific songs or insides jokes or what not with a creative twist. So for example instead of a shirt that just says “Phish” with their logo, it might be a shirt with a picture of the marshmallow man and say “Fluffhead” (one of their songs); or instead of a shirt that has a Grateful Dead logo it might be a parody of the old budweiser logo with the words changed to “Great Bass, Lesh Filling” (in regards to Phil Lesh). I like to wear those kinds of shirts, it’s much more subtle than just wearing a band name on your shirt, plus if you are wearing it around town and someone gets it then you have that immediate connection with them. Would be cool if some of the craft breweries adopted merchandise with subtleties like that!