Newcastle and Hunter craft beer makers are shoving their way into the national conversation about beer.
Five local brewers are in the competition for 2023 Great Australasian Beer Spectapular (GABS) Can Designs Golden Trophy Award. Public voting is open to August 20 to support your favourite brew and its can design (you can vote for three of the 155 entrants).
They are Good Folk Brewing, Hope Brewery, Method Brewing, Modus Operandi, and Shout Brewing.
Newcastle coffee producer Floozy's collaboration with Heaps Normal for its Heaps Normal Coffee Run Stout is in the finals, too.
METHOD
Gavin McKenzie, of the partners in Method Brewing, a newcomer in the craft beer world, in Islington, is mighty proud of his brewery's design entry, Delayed Response.
"We started simple," McKenzie says. " Our initial approach was to keep the can core range, more like bigger volume releases, kind of minimalistic. That way when you do special releases you can have a lot of fun."
Delayed Response, a double WCIPA, was made in collaboration with Sydney craft beer maker Bracket Brewing.
As the entry notes: "The 'delayed responses' between the two breweries in trying to make this collaboration happen, made it feel like they might as well have been communicating in Morse Code! Hence was born the idea to create a Morse Code can design. The dots and dashes were painstakingly placed to create a striking and mesmerising can design."
Hot shot graphic artist Elliot Walsh, a friend of McKenzie, made the design.
The can carries a genuine Morse Code message, and the brewer held a competition to see who could decipher it first. They had a winner on the first day of its release.
Method did a production run of 150 cartons of 440ml cans of Morse Code.
Adrian Mills, an advertising guru from Deloitte, is one of the judges of the GABS can competition. He loves the craft beer industry's approach to design.
"The big brewers tend to spend a lot on their can designs, and promotion," Mills says. "There's a lot that goes into designing something that the average drinker can feel comfortable with. That's what mass marketed products need to do.
"Craft brewers by their nature, are more creative and adventurous with the liquid, and their cans are an expression of this inventiveness.
"Also, take a look at the craft beer section in the bottle shop fridge. You've got to be creative to stand out in that crowd. And for little brewers, their marketing investment goes more into distribution than advertising, so the can has some pretty heavy lifting to do."
HOPE
Larissa Cluff, from Newcastle, is a senior graphic designer for Hope, one of the craft beer heavyweights in the Hunter. Cluff was part of the Hope team that won the Australian International Beer Awards (AIBA) Best Design in 2019 for its Single Hop Hazy IPA can.
Cluff and Paul Mann were part of the Hope team involved in the design of their 2023 GABS can design finalist, Vanilla Stout.
"We created three versions of this design, working through the colour palette and illustration for the beer float. Both of these elements were incredibly important in helping to represent the Vanilla Stout beer itself," she said.
The Hope entry states: "The vision behind the label design for Vanilla Stout was to create a captivating and mouthwatering representation of this delightful sweet stout. The inspiration for the beer float depiction was drawn from the iconic Guinness beer floats, where the dark stout harmoniously blends with the creaminess of the ice cream."
Cluff's first Hope can design was Imperial Pineapple Sour, which has evolved into a series.
GOOD FOLK
James Horne, head brewer at Good Folk Brewing in Hamilton, is proud of his company's GABS can entry, Good Folk Native Sour, designed in collaboration with their in-house designer Melissa Matheson.
The entry says: "The inspiration came from geometric Scandinavian patterns, which include basic shapes, but also adds in elements such as animals, fruit, and nature. It's also not a perfect repeatable pattern but still works and adds a bit of whimsy and fun!"
Horne says: "Standing out on the shelf is really important, especially in the crowded market. To be able to have somebody [in-house designer] is really handy for us. It definitely gives us a leg up."
It's only the 10th can design by Good Folks, the brewery is so new.
"Melissa has her own time initially where she puts together a draft plan," Horne says. "We usually discuss the colour scheme, the geometric style with that among our others is a nice platform. She sends a draft to me and the other owners. We chat about changes, give it the thumbs up, send it to the canning crew, and they do the printing.
"This one in particular, it was a bit more detailed in terms of shapes representing the flavours - raspberries, hibiscus, riberry, a little bit more in the details. That's why we entered it into the GABS - it's a little something extra."
Shout Brewing, from Islington, is also in the finals, with its Minnow Mid-Strength Pale Ale can design. The design is by Beau Penton.
The Modus entry in GABS can design awards is Neural Network East Coast IPA.
