Craft beer has exploded in popularity all over the world over the last decade. Along with hundreds of new and exciting small-batch brews have come a veritable revolution in designing beer labels. This article examines the best labels and logos from the burgeoning field of craft breweries.

 

Braxton Beer

 

Covington, Kentucky’s Braxton Brewery is taking the world by storm. The company started in a garage and while it has grown, its labeling and names still draw on the brewery’s roots by making beer with names like Twisted Bit, Spotlight and even Snow Shovel.

Braxton’s labeling changes to reflect the beer they’re brewing, like this label for its limited edition Buzz brew for the Bunbury Music Fest.

 

Goldhawk Beer

Goldhawk embraces its golden hawk in a most unique way: by designing the label in a modern art deco style. The hawk is made from a yellow sticker that is also transparent, which lets you see the colour of the ale inside the bottle.

 

Grimm Brothers Brewhouse

Loveland, Colorado’s Grimm Brothers Brewhouse is inspired by the world of fairy tales. Design group The Tenfold Collective gave the bottles and logos a distinctively German fairy tale kind of feel.

With Magic Mirror, they even made a reflective mirror. Could the Evil Queen be far behind.

 

Great Lakes Brewery

Cleveland’s Great Lakes Brewery decided to reimagine their packing by hiring local artist Darren Booth to overhaul the iconic Lake Erie brand. The result is a combination of comic book and painting.

Elliot Ness still graces the label of Prohibition Brew, while a pioneer woman packing a gun is featured on the Sharpshooter label. That Cleveland scourge, Burning River Pale Ale, is now a kickass vision of flames burning under the Titans of Industry statue.

 

Cerveceria

Who needs Corona or Tecate when you can get authentic Mexican bee from a small craft brewer? These dynamic bottles were inspired by Mexico’s famous Lucha Libre wrestlers, with their colorful masks. There is an entire genre of film from the 1950’s and 1960’s that featured these larger than life figures.

 

Hilliard’s Brewery

Bottles may be in vogue, but that doesn’t mean the beer can will ever go out of style. Seattle’s Hilliard’s Brewery is inspired by the classic can of the 1970’s. This throwback design lets you know what you’re drinking right away: classic, German beer that will evoke memories of your youth – or your dad’s!

Hilliard’s also became the first company anywhere to put a Saison in a can.

 

Half Acre Beer

Also entering the world on the side of cans, Chicago’s Half Acre Beer uses evil animals to make a point about its strong brews. Their labels are inspired in part by Japanese horror movies. That’s how they came up with the label for Big Hug, with its sweet-killer kitty, or the vest-wearing monkey that rides a horse on the label of Pony.

 

Atom Brewery

Now for something completely different, thanks to Atom Brewing, which blends scientific principles and enthusiasm to create a totally original style. They’ve built their brand around science and the labels reflect that.

The shape of the labels are actually based on the physical forms of the molecules present in beer.