Designing labels

I met with Tomas Dahlgren, our graphics designer last night at the Green Lion Pub to discuss text and design for labels. He designed the labels you saw on the previous blog. Of course, all of these things are always changing, but right now we are planning to start with five ales and do a occasional lager that changes.



Tomas Dahlgren's Windmill

 Each bottle will be similar in design with the logo of the windmill and farm at the bottom of the bottle, next to it is alcohol volume and size, ex. 33cl, then on the top is a logo to represent each beer, the name of the beer and then I have to write a brief description/story about the beer. This is still a work in progress, but here's what I've come up with so far:

Bohemian Pilsner

This classic style of beer comes from Bohemia, once the crossroads of medieval Europe. A pale golden color, the distinctive flavor comes from the noble Saaz hops which gives it a pronounced floral boquet and a lingering rounded bitterness, with a dense, long lasting creamy white head. We salute Josef Groll for creating this golden lager in 1842.





Bohemian Coat of Arms from the 1912 Olympics

 



logo-something to represent Bohemia...perhaps the coat of arms like historic lion with crown banner

Black Sheep Porter

A dark & malty ale with characteristics of molasses & coffee, this ale was made famous in the 1700's by the workers who carried baggage to the ships in London and would bring a fresh pint to the sailors, hence the name 'Porter'.

logo- the black sheep

Post Colonial IPA

For beer warriors who accept the challenge,this highly hopped amber ale will assault your tastebuds on the very first sip, and persist in hoppiness to the bitter end. This style was made famous when the English ships transporting kegs of ale to the colony of India, the beer would always go sour. So they tripled the hops, raising the acidity, hence the name 'India Pale Ale'

logo- a english cutter ship or clipper

South Plains Pale Ale

Brewed in the style of California artisan Pale Ale, the color is darkish yellow to copper tinge, this is a moderately bitter ale and has a strong hoppy floral boquet, with hints of citrus and melon.

logo- a sachet of grains, or a raised hand holding the grains

TLB Golden Bitter

Rich in color of straw to light gold, this very bitter ale gets it's unusual flavor from a blend of the highly acidic 'Pacific Gem Hop' (15.1% alpha acids) and the mild Noble German hop, Spalter, giving this bitter a complex wood or oak flavor with hints of blackberries.

logo- something to imply clean like snow or waterfall, maybe the pond

Altbier

A copper colored, cool fermented, cold conditioned, clean tasting, with a mild hop presence, a firm creamy head, a medium body and a slightly sweet-dry finish. Alt means old, an allusion to the old style of brewing, in contrast to the new beer, the lager style which was invented in Bavaria in the 16th century, which is now the most popular brew in the world. Before that, Altbier was just 'bier'.

logo-something old, perhaps a monestary

Red Sky Marzen

This lager is the historic forerunner to the Oktoberfest beer festival in Munich. A rich German malty aroma and flavor, but the finish is relativly dry. The color is a dark gold to orange and red hues. Our Marzen is cold conditioned for a minimum of 60 days, creating a smooth, clean and rather rich malty lager.

logo-red sunset?

Fridhem Gaard's Doppelbock

A extremley strong malty dark lager with a very low hop aroma and bitterness, the color ranges from medium to dark brown with ruby highlights. A bavarian speciality, there is evidence that it was first brewed illegally by the Paulaner monks on April 2nd, 1751, the names day of their patron saint, St. Francis of Paula.

logo- Monks?, big fat or ugly monks

Dutch Lager??(name)

I need a name for this one, it's kind of like a Grolsh or Heineken

 

Then on the back label we have 'My Story'...thats a tough one to write third person, but I'm working on it.Also I put a little on the quality control with this..

 

'A hand crafted ale, brewed in the tradition of the Reinheitsgebot, or German Beer Purity Law of  1487 in which we only use water, barley, hops & yeast and are completly organic and natural, free of any additives'

Then at the bottom of the bottle there is a batch number I fill in and a place I sign it...........approved by me.

 

Overall it was a good night with Tomas, he liked the things I had written and we talked about many possibilities. We talked about a great many thing, tasting different ales, surprised by how expensive they were...95 kr. (about$14) for a 33cl beer and wondering what I should price mine at. So now I'm struggling with labels & names & descriptions, Funny how life changes!

South Plains Organic Brewing Company

For those of you that don't know, I am in the midst of opening a micro-brewery. You may remember one year ago I posted a recipe for a English ale. Well my friend Anders Paulsson, who owns the Fridhem Gaard farm that the restaurant 'Three Lily Buds' is located, that I write so much about, thought my beer was absolutly fantastic, thought I should enter it in competitions and ultimately convinced me to open this brewery to sell to restaurants, bars, pubs, and the state run alcohol store, Systembolaget. We felt we had a niche by brewing organic since that is so popular here and there is almost no organic beer for sale here. Also there are so many Ecological/Organic restaurants here that can't find organic beers, at least not locally, so that means they have a carbon footprint which kind of defeats the whole purpose. So we started talking to the authorites last summer to determine what it would take to open and start selling & serving. A woman flew down from the Swedish Public Heath and we met, she had a great many questions and inside I expected to run up against a wall of bureaucracy, but to my complete surprise, she gave us her blessing. She had a list of things we needed to do, and we were able to complete that list and to make a long story short, we got final approval and can now (after we get all the tax regulations in order) brew beer in the restaurant, sell it on tap in the restaurant, and I can sell it to other places. Of course, I still have to order grains & hops..brew it...bottle it...so it may be some time until it actually happens, but at least I feel like were there! Where I can make the beer, Anders is connected and networked. He can make things happen while I would struggle with them. A example is the labels. He had a graphic designer named Tomas Dalgren create them, I think they are absolutly wonderful! To date I have made about 20 experimental batches, 15 of them excellent so we plan to open with six. That will be...

                           Bohemian Pilsner

                           Pale Ale

                           Golden Bitter

                           IPA

                           Altbier

                           Porter

   We plan on starting small and buying some larger equipment in the spring. At first we thought we would name it 'Paulson & Brown Organic Brewing Company' but now have thought to have it be 'South Plains Organic Brewing Company' and P&B will be one of several labels under it. The area we are in is called south plains (söderslätt in swedish). Thats my update on the microbrewery for now....chao!