Craft Beer Breweries Realize the Need for Strong Branding

Craft beer has been a passion of mine for a few years. Like social media, craft beer is constantly changing. It’s an exciting time to be a beer drinker. New breweries are opening all over the country and reshaping the way we look at beer. They are pushing boundaries with new techniques in brewing to innovative packaging. Breweries are re-imagining themselves by becoming vacation destinations (seriously) and competing with wineries for tourism dollars by opening restaurants, gift shops and in extreme cases even hotels. The demand by avid craft beer drinkers like myself is there, so why not take advantage of it?

One area I see the craft beer industry spreading its wings is in branding. Forget busty girls and dumb jocks. Craft beer companies don’t have the long, storied history which saddles large breweries. The clean slate allows them to get really creative and customers respond to the unique branding. Breweries are fighting for shelf space in retail stores and strong branding is what it takes to snag a new customer. Think cats smoking cigarettes riding scooters and big Mayan sundials. How else will consumers choose to try something they’ve never heard of before?

The Indiana craft beer industry has a handful of new breweries who are creating a unique branding that will stand up to future growth. Branding has become a big part of how they’ll make a mark on a consumers with loyalties to other brews. Here’s a few of my new favorites.

Daredevil Brewing Company

Daredevil Brewing exploded onto the central Indiana craft beer scene with their signature beer, Lift Off IPA. The Daredevil logo is solid with a bold red helmet and nice detail of a D as the face mask. It reminds me of a modern stylized Evel Kenevil. It’s clean and memorable branding which is important since they’ll be jockeying for shelf space and visibility in the demanding craft beer market. While they aren’t packing their beer in bottles or cans yet, I expect to see a juxtaposition of old and new on their label art.

Tin Man Brewing Company

Haven’t heard of Tin Man Brewing Company yet? They opened their environmentally friendly brewery just last week in Evansville, Indiana. Tin Man’s branding extends from the foundation of the brewery to the finished product you sip on. Every piece of their branding is based on innovation and automation. Instead of an old-timey Wizard of Oz-style look, they went with robots. A steampunk robot dominates their cans and website. Speaking of the cans, they’re a duplicated template with small color and design variations. It’s a strong clean look very different from the generally cartoonish looks from other southern Indiana breweries.

Look at the shelves the next time you’re in a store. How much of branding plays a part in what choice you make if you decide to branch out from your go to beer?