Arcade Brewery Design Contest Yields Many 8-bit Renderings of William Wallace

Greetings beerfriends from San Diego, land of hops and sun with a slightly chilly breeze. A few assorted beer art things I wanted to take a look at:

First up: Arcade Brewery had its first design contest, for their Scotch Ale, "William Wallace Wrestle Fest" The submissions ranged as one might imagine, with a few hitting the whole Arcade Brewery theme of old video games and doing a kid of 8-bit art style.

I don't think William Wallace actually looked like Mel Gibson, but I find the attempt to replicate Mel as he would have appeared in Punch-Out, and then sever his head, an interesting one.

He definitely could have been a Double Dragon boss. 

More of a 16-bit approach. The radiating lines are effective at making him look like he's quivering.

 Your winner, by Matthew LaFleur, takes a less digital approach:

Wrestling a dragon is made only slightly harder by having a woman dangling off one's arm.

Nice artwork, great detail in the figures and the bizarre foreshortening looks really cool (and will, even more so, I'm sure, on a bottle).

Next: I received in the mail my copy of the new Craft Beerds book by Fred Abercrombie. It looks awesome  and has some incredible artwork in it:

My blurb was first on the back! HA! Take that, Oh Beautiful Beer!

So if you're short a Mother's/Father's Day gift for a parental beer-lover, give it a look-see.

Victory et al. had their Amber Waves event, and while I was not invited (read: comped), it looks like it was really cool. The art in the online auction afterward appears to have sold for quite reasonable amounts. We'll see what happens with next year, but between that and Brooklyn's traveling Mash thing, the beer-art confluence appears to be on the rise.

Carol Stoudt with "The Queen of Hops" art at Amber Waves

Other news and notes:

• The always-well-designed Vanberg and Dewulf portfolio is out.
• Check out OBB's beautiful images of the new Summit Repeal Prohibition poster.
• Trendhunter compiles 32 ridiculous ways to hold beer, including facial hair koozies and a device to put beer in one's bra.