Which brewery needs to change their packaging and labeling

Sometimes it might seem that way, but the problem is, for a while Coke was being phased out in favor of New Coke (in part, they thought, to Compete with Pepsi because of the Pepsi challenge) and all the money was being spent on branding/marketing/promoting New Coke with the intention of eliminating regular Coke entirely by letting it die an unmarketed death. However, there are many people who simply prefer the flavor of Regular Coke and all the branding/marketing of New Coke didn't sway them one bit and they continued to buy Regular Coke despite all that marketing of New Coke. If branding and marketing were the only thing at play that would not have been the case.

(Similarly despite the branding/marketing, etc. of both Regular Coke and Pepsi, there are some who prefer the taste of one of the other and the branding/marketing from the other side doesn't sway them a bit. Similarly there are still folks who prefer Dr. Pepper and refuse to give it up despite the fact that Coke and Pepsi are marketed more heavily. )

In many ways it's a lot like beer. Bud, Miller and Coors market the hell out of their brands but there are many of us who simply ignore all that because we much prefer more flavorful beers despite all that marketing. Also our numbers are growing without much marketing on the part of over 4000 small breweries. But if marketing was what it was all about, neither of those should be happening at all.

 

weyerbacher.

 

Yes... I am not sure if they truly are satisfied with their designs, or if it is just what works for their price range. Quite possibly my least favorite designs from a brewery I otherwise really enjoy.

 

Also, I love Russian River, but the Comic Sans has to go. It is a font I used to use to write papers in when I was in fourth grade because I thought it looked cool. It is possibly the least professional looking font there is. Other than that, I love their labels and beers.

 

So these labels actually put the beer in your hand for you... not a bad parlor trick that!

 

Can I use any brewery that doesn't have an easily-identifiable date anywhere on the bottle or label? For quite a few styles, that's an instant no for me, unless I know for 100% certain that it just came in.

As for specific breweries, I don't really care for Omnipollo. As gregstrong mentioned, there's zero information that you can see straight away, just some artwork, and the very high price tag, so I tend to just skip over them automatically. I tend to prefer straight-forward labels where it's really easy to see what beer you're picking up, what style it is, and any other relevant info.

 

This past weekend while headed to my brothers house just south of Baltimore, my wife, SIL and I stopped at a liquor store (that I was told had a lot of craft beer). Since we were on the road and typically late, we didn't have a lot of time to shop. I started going up and down the 4 aisles, keeping thoughts of something I'd buy while trying to find that 'wanted' beer. I checked out a 4 pack of Red Shedman Vanilla Porter (never heard of it before), and continued looking for something more popular and highly regarded. After 15 minutes of quickly going up and down the aisles, I hit upon Founders Porter (never had, wanted bad).. and just before leaving.. in a last minute rush, walked back to the Red Shedman and grabbed a 4 pack, and hit the register. We got out to the car, loaded the beers into a cooler.. dumped in the ice and headed out.

Later that night, after settling in.. I had a couple of Fat Tires, and decided to explore my new beers. I went to the cooler, grabbed me a Red Shedmans.. opened and poured. I noticed the beer appeared to be very un-Porter-ish looking. Raised the glass.. took a few whiffs to get the aroma.. and thought "WTF.. is this HORRIBLY BAD?". Without looking at the can, I still had to taste it. For sh!t sake, this ISN'T what I bought.. but it was. If you take a look at the cans.. one has a little blue box that states Vanilla Porter. I actually thought the name of the beer was RedShedman. Needless to say, I had to detour the trip home and get a 4 pack of my intended catch. Oh well.

 

For all those who mentioned Hoppin Frog (me included), does this one-off seem like a step in the right direction?



They also took a different approach on the label for TORIS a couple months back, even though it was more of a facelift to their standard template:



Anyway, curious as to thoughts for all those that previously mentioned these guys.

 

Shit is awful. Combine that with their pricing scheme and their stuff will continue to linger on the shelf

 

Price is the same or less per ounce for comparable brews.

 

I don't see Hoppin sitting anywhere in VA tbh. BA boris is one of the best stouts $4$, period. Other than the stouts though, yeah the IPA prices are a little wacky, but I never see them sit. Maybe our local wholesaler brings in only what they know they can sell at this point.

Can't wait to see any new beers without that abv cap. Boris high gravity anyone?

 

I really do not like the new Great Lakes labels.

I fel like a lot of the recent label redo's are not good.....WEyerbacher, Troegs, Ommegang, they all just blend into the shelf. The old were not good but they stood out on the shelves. I guess the consumer is buying a look and a bad label wont sell.

Enjoy

 

New Holland. Old labels waay better lookong. New ones are just gawdy and ugly as hell. Sorry guys.

 

The single worst label in beer and it's not close. I will be continuing my involuntary ATG boycott until it changes.

 

The can is even worse looking than the bottle

Enjoy

 

I don't know, I kind of love those types of labels. The ones that are completely outdated or just show absolutely no awareness for basic rules of design or typography, especially if they've been around for a while. There's something charming and distinctive about them.

For instance, Berkshire Brewing labels all used to look like this:



But then they updated them, and now they all look like this, and it bums me out:



The old labels were fairly crude and showed their age, but they were comfortable, familiar and nostalgic. The new ones I guess are objectively better I guess, but they just blend in with everything else. It's like a grandparent moving from a house you spent a chunk of your childhood in. Yeah maybe their new condo is nicer but it's sterile and you just miss all that pink carpet and wood paneling. The Russian River comic sans? It's the pink carpeting. Even if it's ugly, you'll miss it when it gone.

 

You're missing out... Brown Note as(s)ide, 35K and 70K are friggin' awesome.

 

I wasn't kidding when I said my boycott of ATG is "involuntary". For a while I didn't even realize the mental association I have between their distinctive bottle/can art and human feces. That's a hell of a thing to get over, and between that, the questionable prices and freshness of their products in my home market, and the essentially limitless amount of quality alternatives I have access to, I don't see myself becoming an ATG customer any time soon.

 

Huh? They don't even sell packaged beer.