The Session 55: Label, Coaster and Cap Art

September already? Sheesh. Time for another Session beer blog Friday, hosted this month by Curtis Taylor at HopHeadSaid on the subject of label, coaster and cap art.

You may think I ought to be more interested in beer arty. I work in marketing, after all. Truth be told, I'm firmly in the camp of stuff-art-drink-beer-and-carry-on. Usually.

I was tempted to pearoast a previous Session post as an Orval label and Chimay cork-cap comes pretty damn close to design perfection for me. But there are three beery things worth a big-up.


Saison Dupont is my summer fridge beer. It's just.... right. Satiating. Post-lawnmowing, pre-BBQ, mid-lounging-around-going-sweet-FA. And the cork cap is simply superb; bold design, distinctive colour combo. And it's got a hop on it. Job done. There's always a few of these knocking around my kitchen (and my garden, my garage, all points between). I'd go so far to say that the Saison Dupont cap is an overlooked design classic.


Beermat collecting really isn't my bag. But I've usually got one tucked inside the pocket of my Tilley LT5. Because I have other odds and sods in there like spare cash and a bottle opener. And a beermat keeps it all flat and out of the way. This one is a Thornbridge beermat; usually brewers' mission statements are a steaming pile of spent grain but these guys live by these words. For which, thirsty topers are most grateful.








And last, but my no means first, there's beer labels. Where the only ones to get me mildly excited of late have been those by Kernel. As this picture stolen from Pete Favelle shows, the killer thing about Kernel labels is they're anti-design. Plain brown paper, identical layout. Why do I love them? They let the beer do the talking. They give you a style and an ABV. Let's be honest; that's all you need.

It's just struck me. Looking back on these three... straightforward, bold, clean design.

Keeping It Simple, Stupid. But still standing out. I'll drink to that.

2 comments:

  1. I wish we could let the beer do the talking, then we wouldn't have to listen to hours of triple hopped, frost brewed, beechwood aged garbage. Ah, we can dream though.

    BTW when I drink, the beer does start talking after I have had a few:-)

    Thanks for the post

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  2. You know if you steam off an Orval label, it look's unfortunately un-dissimilar to an erection....

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