'Beer Art' You Release My Inner Child

Matt Morris
May 29, 2017
4 min read

I have had this discussion with many people over beer clip designs or 'beer art' as I like to call it and if they enticed them in to have a sample? I was glad to hear that like me it comes across that the majority of us are big kids and are swayed regularly based on the clip artwork. Whether it be a giant three-headed parrot on fire, a gun slinging slug or a space scene of cats having a war with giraffes; we love them.

I will jump in with the brewery that inspired me to actually write this, it is Wild Weather Ales of Reading. Looking back on Untappd I was surprised to find out I first had one of their ales back in early 2016 at a Beer Festival, now I never saw the clip would have I remembered it? Considering I rated 'Blizzard' at a 4/5; a rating I do not give to many which really surprised me and my lack of remembrance of it. I have had a few of their brews this year including seeing the beer art before hand, all of which I still remember vividly. For example 'Shepherds Warning' the clip showed Sheep with rocket launchers I mean how cool is that? that specific beer was excellent too. The beer clip that really grabbed my attention from the Berkshire lads was that of their Pale Ale 'Betrayal'. I am a big lover of retro Nintendo and when I saw a Zombie Yoshi, I did not even look at the average ratings on Untappd which I am accustomed to, however with this one I just had to have the beer because of the clip design. Another example is Kwantum State a Kaffir Lime Saison (yeah it tastes as great as it sounds) was sitting there in the fridge, a pink cobra on a bed of skulls while it made absolutely no sense to the drink it just looked cool. Then last week I went into the excellent Hopwater Cellar in Newcastle-under-Lyme then BANG four cans of Wild Weather beers were the first thing I saw, I mean how can they keep drawing the eyes instantly? Well, I can answer that, the artwork again was brilliant: Cavemen (Wild Boys), Monkey Pirates (Curse of Threepwood), Urban Panda (Skadoosh) and Angry Clowns (Blood of Angry Men) - I had the fortune to try two of the beers, both being of a high standard. While I love the artwork, I think I would now drink their beers without seeing the clips based on who brewed it, but would I have known who they were without the first initial bang of the intrigue of the Sheep or Nintendo gaming? Judging by the Blizzard beer, probably not, which means these great designs do work to a large success; especially to newer breweries on the market. Keep up the great work guys.

I could go on about other breweries which have excellent artwork until the cows come home, but one that I have admired for years and love are that of London's Beavertown. The Londoners really do stand out and have some of the most recognisable designs in the beer world. Soon as you see their David Firth like creepy skeleton folk, their Illuminati like pyramid or some weird space scene - you know it is going be one of theirs. While their beer is very popular these days, is there really any need for them to have such extreme beer art? Well for me I believe that is part of the experience of drinking one of their splendid beers, while you sink down a delicious Gamma Ray or sip on a Heavy Water you can not but help have a good look at the can, it really makes it a full drinking experience. The fantastic Huddersfield based Magic Rock have recently started to up their image game moving from their stylish Cirque du Soleil type clips, for all there general attractiveness they were nothing special as all they tended to do was change the colour for each different beer. These days they have gone a tad crazy with little alien creatures you expect to see on a cartoon and very recently their cans have started to blaze a bizarre alien tribal like design, while they tend to still have a running similarity with different colours; they do stand out a mile though which is the aim.

This is one area of beer I really do love and I can not wait for the next designs by so many breweries to make me chuckle or think wow how ace is this!? For you 'beer artists' out there, please keep doing what you do and let your brilliant, yet sometimes warped minds free to give us such wonderful creations.