Craft Beer Labels: Our Top 5 Tips

Insider Tips for Craft Brewers

So you’ve worked hard brewing your beer, making packaging decisions, searching for the right bottler–now, what about producing your craft beer labels? It may be stressful making the decisions you need to in order to produce your craft beer labels, but with our tips below, it will make this process seem like a short “hop” from decision-making to printing your final beer bottle labels!

#1 Think (really think) about your design

Your packaging design makes a huge impact on whether or not your product will stand out amongst others–influencing whether or not consumers will choose your beer over a competitor’s.

While you consider strong graphics versus more subtle or abstract designs, also think about adding a custom-cut shape to your label. Something quirky and fun could catch the eye of a consumer while differentiating your brand from others. A non-traditional label shape could also provide a degree of engagement between your consumers and your product, as they might want to take a closer look or even play with it.

Colour is also a key factor in catching your customers’ attention. While you want to use a colour palette that aligns with your branding, think about colours that not only stand out and match your design but also set your beer label apart from the others. Pantone allows you to match your brand and colour palette perfectly, colours which can then be mixed and printed perfectly on printers such as our HP Indigo WS6800 Digital Press. Read More about the psychology behind product labels here.

#2 Think About Material Types

It’s important to think about label material types for beverages as factors like condensation and being chilled in refrigerators or buckets of ice can compromise not only your labels but your brand image.

While we carry a large range of label materials, the most popular option for our brewery customers is our PP material, which is a polypropylene material that is protective against these elements!

However, if you’re set on using a paper material for your beer labels to provide an artisanal look and feel, we offer a matte varnish that protects against the elements. But it is not a completely waterproof option, so our advice would be to ensure retailers don’t submerge your beer bottles in buckets of ice!

#3 Consider Your Finishing Options

The above-mentioned protective varnish is what is going to protect your labels from things like bottle sweat and fading through refrigeration. This comes in a matte or gloss finish for either a soft, natural finish or a glossy shine. For example, a matte varnish would be nice on a label with textured paper to maintain that organic feel, while a gloss varnish would bolster the shine on a glossy PP material label.

The aforementioned varnishes are protective and functional finishes. If you’re looking to add something a little more special to your designs, then premium finishes may be the way.

Hot foil stamping is a finish that can really set your label apart from the rest. See how our customer, East London Brewing Company, has used gold hot foiling to make certain design elements on their label, such as their brand logo, pop.

#4 Seasonality & Limited Edition Brews

A growing trend in the craft beer industry is to have beer labels that are not only unique to the brand, but also unique to each brew in the product line. Our customer, Tempest Brewing Co., has fully embraced the uniqueness of each of their brews through their labels, from their core range to their seasonal and limited edition brews.

Another customer example is Hop Stuff Brewery‘s limited edition, seasonal collaboration beers with Drury Tea and Coffee Company for the Christmas season. They added Drury’s brand logo directly to the left of the Hop Stuff logo on the label and changed the text on the three seasonal brews to reflect the tea and coffee additions to the brewing process.

An amazing development made possible by digital print is the reduction in the time and cost of printing multiple variations of the same labels and stickers within one printing run on digital printers like our HP Indigo–making printing seasonal beer labels cost-effective and hassle-free. You can even put different text on each one of your labels. The same goes for batch numbers, customers’ names, etc.

#5 Find The Right Bottler

If your brews are labelled on automatic machines, you may have already found a bottler you like, but changes in your label design, which may include changes in your material or varnishing, may affect whether or not your current bottler can label your beers. If you’re testing out the market with different label materials or are thinking of redesigning your labels, keep this in mind, as many require labels to be made of PP material–which can be applied when the bottle is still wet after sterilisation.

Also, different bottling machines may have different winding directions for applying roll labels, which is something we need to know when printing your labels so they are correctly wound on our rolls. Questions? You can reach us by telephone on +44 (0) 203 588 1080 or by email: info@label.co.uk.

Craft Beer Labels