So for the best of the week, I'm staying local to me (I promise, this isn't a big plug for breweries I know... just worked out that way).
First,
Fegleys Brew Works artist Alex Clare has a label for the Amber Lager they've just started bottling.
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| A somewhat idealized version of steelworkers |
One of his stronger works, it's well-constructed in the heroic Art Deco style. In this case, we will suspend our disbelief at the multicultural steelworker parade and appreciate the well-rendered 2-D, hardline style. From a product branding perspective, I wonder if they'll regret not giving this beer a real name. In our part of PA, "Lager" means Yuengling, and it seems strange that a brewery with a penchant for resonant names (e.g. Hops Explosion, Insidious, Hopsolutely) would skip that on a beer where the style is synonymous with a nationally-known local competitor. Still, great label in a very cool style. Though Art Deco was often used for socialist/labor pieces in the early 1900s, it's often associated with the iconic cover for archconservative Ayn Rand's
The Fountainhead:
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| In Rand's mythology, Gods=Job creators, Prometheus=Welfare queen |
Still somewhat local, but in a very different style, we have Stoudt's Amber, brewed for their anniversary:
The style is Scherenschnitte, a Pennsylvania Dutch (i.e. ethnic German) style of paper cutting that is, shall we say, fairly common in Lancaster County, where Stoudts is, and in nearby Berks. I just wanted to highlight it since I've never seen it on a beer label before, and breweries incorporating local folk art traditions is quite awesome.
Okay, let's go to the worst:
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| Just... no. |
I know
little nothing about Texas Big Beer Brewery, but let's just count the number of awful cliches in this label. Blond woman=blonde beer. Use of "big ass" as a bad double entendre. Use of a woman's figure to somehow suggest that we should drink beer. Texas=big. Texans, I beg of you: Drink better beer.
Two things you should read:
Greg, I disagree with your assessment of this label. As a card-caring member of the great United States of America, I see art as transcendent, speaking to me on many levels regardless of my economic background, accent, or where and how I make my paper reindeer cut-outs. I also see "art" as being funnier when preceeded by an "f". Finally, I like to multi-task, satisfying all of my senses, which is why I am writing this comment while doing 75 down the Parkway-West in my F-350 pick-em-up truck. For those reasons, I appreciate what the Texas Big Beer Big Huge Brewing Large Big Company is doing with this product. It not only quenches my thirst with a massive quanity of swill (22 oz!), but in between gulps I can appreciate a very fine tramp stamp (art) and a bodacious pooper (God's art). Lastly, the woman's figure doesn't subliminally suggest we drink beer. If the label existed to suggest we drink, it would be a mirror glued to a bottle with a caption that said "Drink up, you're an American. You're welcome." Nay, sir, the label exists to tell us what we are enjoying, give us a glimpse into the mind of the mad scientist that brewed this wicked treat, and satisfy our remaining senses while my liver-sense is being drowned. So, when I am enjoying this 1 pint + 6 oz golden hued, unapologetic Texan brew, I think to myself: "Damn... This label is perfect."
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