We just got a couple more label drafts back from our artist, Evan B. Harris. As I mentioned in the last article on this topic, working with Evan has been really fun. It’s always exciting to see what he comes back with as a visual after we’ve communicated the idea behind a beer to him. He never draws it the way we imagined it, but his way always turns out better. (I guess that’s why he’s the artist and we just make beer.)
We told him that our porter is called Night Swim because something about it feels like a dip in the warm gulf waters at night. I’m not sure why, but it works in our heads. We hoped it would work in Evan’s too. Here’s what he came back with for a label:
A couple caressing a miniature boat in the water at night while smoking a hobbit pipe and pouring beer down a shark’s throat. Makes perfect sense! Somehow, it does seem to capture the right feeling.
And, finally, we asked him to work up something for our wheat ale, Wheat Stroke. We mentioned to him that we thought it would be a great outdoors in the heat beer – the kind of beer you’d want after going running on the beach, or hanging out in the sun.
Evan’s interpretation:
One runner guy being refreshed by a conch shell wielding mermaid while a pelican with headphones serves as an impromptu ice chest. Again, we loved it. I’m not sure if that runner guy is going to sell any beer, but the illustration is fun for us to look at.
So that’s what our bottled beer will look like. We’re working hard to try to get them on shelves near you this fall. We hope you’ll recognize it when you see it.
On the brewing front, we are officially brewing on the big system now. There’s a brew going on in the back as I type. There have been quite a few hiccups (a leaky vessel here, a faulty part there) but it seems that we’re getting all the kinks ironed out of the system as we go along. We still think we’ll have some kegged beer made on the big system out in the market by the end of July.
In the coming days we should have a pretty good idea of what our tap handles will look like, too. We’ll get sneak peeks of those out to you soon.
Cheers, and, as always, we appreciate you checking in on us.
– Kent