Tröegs - more label re-designs

This is profoundly dumb. An outside contractor -- which is what that artist is -- does not need to adhere to some arcane standards of 'professionalism,' when he or she goes into the headquarters of a company. Much less a brewery. That isn't a courtroom or the trading floor at Goldman Sachs.

 

I'd rather work with her professionally than any of the judgmental, boorish, oafish, louts who frequent this forum.

 

Whether you like the new look or not, I think this gives them or greatly improves upon their consistent look across the lineup. Something I don't think they have now.

 

Me, insults? What is it with the hipster phobia around here? I don't think that's a big enough market identity for them to focus on but so what? Why does that seem to cause some people so much anxiety? Who's doing the name calling and judging people by their appearance?

I'm guessing they did some market research and are doing this with an informed eye. I mean they are a multi-million dollar company and all. The Trogners deserve a little credit for their business decision making.

 

Hoarding, whales, mules, trading, waiting in line for limited release, believers club... It's hipsters and only hipsters. "Real" craft beer drinkers don't have anything to do with trends, popularity or prices. They don't stand in line for releases. How exactly has the craft beer industry been negatively impacted by a small, urban, possibly self-affected and similarly attired group of consumers? I mean other than than this delusion that hipsters gleefully wait in line for hours and fork over more money than you arbitrarily think they should, not what the brewer or the free market decides.

When hipsters buy beer it's bad because they are only being trendy and insincere and thus drive up prices. When "real " craft beer drinkers buy beer it's good because their thoughts are as pure as the driven snow and do not increase prices. Are bans on craft beer proposed due to negative stereotypes? Should we put all hipsters in internment camps and feed them only Bud Lite and Wonder bread?

By the way, have you actually looked at many of the folks in the industry? Beards, unkept hair, piercing, tattoos, flannel shirts, etc. seem to be the norm. Many look like pretty marginal characters but guess what, no one cares. We judge them by their beer, their business, their principles for god sake, not what they look like. With my old decrepit body I still can't take enough painkillers to begin to dream about how you think the real world functions.

Ok, done with the hipster/ artwork thing. I don't agree in the least but sincerely understand where you are coming from.

 

Should we put all hipsters in internment camps and feed them only Bud Lite and Wonder bread?

No, just PBR

 

Not in the least bit...

 

I'm squarely in the camp that this label redesign sucks. These childish and timid looking little pencil sketches don't correspond with the big bold beers that put Troegs on the map... Mad Elf, Troegenator, Nugget Nectar, Perpetual, Flying Mouflan, even the Hopback Amber flagship was bold in it's day. The design just looks cheap and amateurish too, although I'm sure they paid their designers handsomely. I would expect this from a new startup brewery, not an established national leader of craft beer with a 20+ year legacy.

I feel like they are trying way too hard to chase a demographic - millennials, hipsters, twenty-somethings, or whatever you want to call them, we all know who they are without putting anyone down. It will be interesting to see if this rebrand helps Troegs in the short or long term because 1) consumers can usually detect pandering, 2) the target demographic is notoriously fickle, 3) could older customers be turned off by the redesign, 4) and trends can change very quickly, which could make this design suddenly look very dated.

 

FWIW, I was born in 1980, which puts me between the Gen-X and Gen-Y/Millennial generations, so I don't think I'm completely out of the loop yet.... In a few years I'll be the geezer shaking his cane at the whipper-snappers on his lawn and then you kids can all ignore me.

 

Good article; thanks for sharing.

Preface by saying that this won't affect my Troegs drinking proclivity, but, with the exception of Hop Knife and Blizzard (which suffered only subtle changes), I prefer the old artwork in every instance. Feel it essentially neuters previously bold art, like if Flying Dog replaced Ralph Steadman with Charles M. Schulz.

 

Can't blame the Trogner bros. for wanting their product to be more easily detected among the clutter on the shelves and to grow their brand, which I think the label redesign will do. I agree that the new designs may not have the graphic impact of the old labels, but the new lineup as a whole has a more unified aesthetic and much more consistent brand placement—the new "guitar pick" logo prominently located at the top of each label. If you look at the old labels in the article linked to above, less than half of them had the Tröegs "stamp" logo, and on the rest the Tröegs name is often inconspicuous at best, erratically located, and rendered using different fonts. Sure, existing drinkers of Tröegs beers could easily spot favorites on the shelf, but anyone walking into a bottle shop looking to buy one or more of those brews for the first time might have a hard time picking them out. Sure they could ask the staff, but I think most people would rather leave that out of the shopping equation, preferring to walk in, scan the shelves and grab what they came for. IMO the new labels will make that easier than the old.

 

I almost spit my coffee out reading that.... and yes, perfect analogy.


For their next logo rebrand I think they should go retro 80's style with TROEGS in metallic block letters and "Independent Brewing" handwritten in pink neon... so they can be easily detected.