30
Best-Looking Beer Cans in America
intro
the world has been highly hands-off. Everything is seemingly at arm’s length (if not farther away), out of touch, save for one notable exception: beer cans. They’re one of the few objects we can cradle in our hands—the liquid contents soothing jangled nerves, the labels serving as solo outings to an art gallery. Our third year of judging America’s best beer can design has been our toughest yet. It’s a matter of quantity and quality. Attractive labels are the lowest bar to entry in a marketplace mobbed with more than 8,000 breweries. In lieu of traditional advertising, breweries rely on social sharing of striking labels, pretty enough for a picture—and hopefully pretty tasty, too. The best beer can designs merge aesthetics with intake. The effect is not unlike listening to a band’s sonically expansive album while eyeballing the cover, covering several senses at once. It was a tough job, but the eyes have it. Here are 30 of the best-designed American beer cans (including one cider and a hard seltzer) that stand out in 2020.
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30 Best-Looking Beer Cans in America
tri vo
Design by
joshua m. bernstein
Story by
2019 winners
best-looking beer cans in America
Of late, the world has been highly hands off. Everything is seemingly at arm’s length, if not farther away, out of touch save for one notable exception: beer cans. They’re one of the few objects we can cradle in our hands, the liquid contents soothing jangled nerves, the labels serving as solo outings to an art gallery. Our third year of judging America’s best beer can design has been our toughest yet. It’s a matter of quantity and quality. Attractive labels are the lowest bar to entry in a marketplace mobbed with more than 8,000 breweries. In lieu of traditional advertising, breweries rely on social sharing of striking labels, pretty enough for a picture—and hopefully pretty tasty too. The best beer-can designs merge aesthetics with intake. The effect is not unlike listening to a band’s sonically expansive album while eyeballing the cover, covering several senses at once. It was a tough job, but the eyes have it. Here are 30 of the best-designed American beer cans (including one cider and a hard seltzer) that stood out in 2020.
30 best-looking beer cans in America
2018 winners
MORE WINNERS
Of late,
2020
best-looking beer
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Talea’s delightful packaging “is inspired by Bauhaus elements, leveraging bold geometric shapes, pattern repetition and contrasting, playful color combinations,” says Tara Hankinson, a cofounder of the female-owned brewery. It tries to make craft beer more accessible by announcing style, alcohol percentage, and tasting notes right on the cans. Sun Up, for example, is a “lush, juicy, and bright” hazy IPA.
Brooklyn, New York
Talea Beer Co.: Sun Up Hazy IPA
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Little Beast Brewing: Hot Break
Little Beast is beloved for its complex wild and sour ales, notably Hot Break. “It has vivid flavors and is outrageously quenching,” says Brenda Crow, a Little Beast founder. “We wanted the design to reflect that and our designer, Andy Morris, perfectly put it in context. The ornate birds of paradise flowers and bright, tropical colors set the tone for what’s inside.”
Portland, Oregon
DuClaw Brewing Co.: Regular Beer
Baltimore’s DuClaw cuts through the visual clutter with a simple message. “The vast array of designs and colors on the shelves can be overwhelming,” says DuClaw lead designer Tyler McCoy. “We wanted to create something bold, utilitarian, and in your face—something you know is beer.” Regular Beer is an uncomplicated lager for a complicated world.
Baltimore, Maryland
Bunker Brewing Company: Green Mind
“We found an old topographical map of Maine at a flea market, and we thought it was perfect to represent a super-special Bunker beer that we only brew once a year with wet local hops, Maine malt, and delicious Sebago Lake water,” says Bunker founder Chresten Sorensen of the label by HiDuke. Both the beer and the can are an ode to the Pine Tree State and a Dinosaur Jr. album.
Portland, Maine
AleWife Brewing Company: Lupulin Vibrations
AleWife alters the hop bill for each version of its Lupulin Vibrations double IPA. Designer Daniel F. Birch differentiates releases with distinctive wave distortions, the colors symbolizing a hop’s flavor profile. Here, the tropical fruit verve of Azacca is rendered in sunny pink, orange, and yellow. “This series takes my love of a solid, traditional brand and mixes it with the experimental and psychedelic.”
Long Island City, New York
Seventh Son Brewing: Kitty Paw Hard Seltzer (Pineapple-Tangerine)
Most hard seltzers cans look similar: slim cans, fruit imagery, clean layouts, calorie counts clearly announced. Seventh Son separates Kitty Paw by giving each flavor (they use real fruit) a distinct pattern and color palette. The approach juxtaposes “the prettier nature of the pattern with a clean, bold, and almost sporty treatment of the logo and copy,” says designer Will Fugman.
Columbus, Ohio
Offshoot Beer Co.: Relax
The Bruery’s spinoff brand, Offshoot, focuses on fresh, hop-forward IPAs such as the softly fruity Relax. The labels feature whimsical illustrations that communicate Offshoot’s easygoing identity. “The Relax can design perfectly embodies the Offshoot brand as a whole: fresh and fun-forward, with some subtle humor on top,” says head of marketing Daniel Munoz.
Placentia, California
The Rare Barrel: Speaking Tongues
Speaking Tongues, a sour IPA packed with mangoes, takes its name from the Talking Heads album Speaking in Tongues, while the eye-catching psychedelic label—the holographic tongue wraps around the can—echoes the album’s genre-blending appeal. “I wanted to take this same approach,” says chief operating officer Danielle Byers, “by experimenting with unconventional label material to create something new that stood out and was still approachable.”
Berkeley, California
Zero Gravity Craft Brewery: Strawberry Moon
Strawberry Moon is a taste of the Green Mountain State, starring native grains and 3,600 pounds of organic Vermont strawberries. “We wanted Strawberry Moon to be an expression of summer flavor through the use of simple, modern typography and bright, fun color palette,” says designer Andy Morris, who also designed the Hot Break label for Little Beast.
Burlington, Vermont
Fox Farm Brewery: The Cabin
The pastoral Connecticut brewery, based on a former dairy farm, worked with Brooklyn creative studio Young Jerks on a labeling system that’s loosely inspired by vintage seed packets. “It acts as a nice nod to our story, and we like to think there’s a classic feel that reflects our own brewing style,” says founder Zack Adams. The Cabin is a refreshing helles-style lager with a wisp of smoke.
Salem, Connecticut
Fair State Brewing Cooperative: Strata
Strata is one of America’s hottest new hop varieties, its profile often described as “passion fruit meets pot.” The pungent variety is the star of this hazy IPA, a follow-up to 2019 design winner Spirit Foul. “We wanted to do a design as graphic and attention-getting, something that felt like it could be a cousin of the original,” says designer Mike Shacherer, VP and creative director of Little.
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Cerebral Brewing: Scam Likely
You’ll want to accept this double IPA, which features rotating hops such as El Dorado that’s reminiscent of watermelon Jolly Ranchers. “The can art references that frustrating experience of looking at our phone and realizing it wasn’t friends or family calling,” says Sean Buchan, Cerebral’s owner and head brewer.
Denver, Colorado
Reuben’s Brews: Double Crush
The award-grabbing Seattle brewery tapped Pittsburgh firm Top Hat to reboot its brand identity around the idea of “beer unbound.” The firm created a more dynamic lowercase “r,” the brewery’s signature mark, and labels with bolder color treatment. We’re big fans of the design of the Crush series of hazy imperial IPAs, including the ’60s style infinity eyes of Double Crush.
Seattle, Washington
Independence Brewing: Austin Amber
Long-running Independence Brewing refreshed its look and feel in 2019, opting for a distinctive canvas. “The black cans set us apart,” says Drew Lakin, one of the designers who collaborated on the project. The backdrop helps the vintage illustrations pop, giving beers such as Austin Amber a timeless look, at home in any era. “I wanted it to seem like you could find these cans in the bed of some old Austin hippie’s beat-down Ford,” says project designer Lauren Dickens.
Austin, Texas
Alaskan Brewing Co.: Kölsch
Last year, Alaskan Brewing selected Blindtiger Design to revamp the look of the company that was founded in 1986. Our favorite refurbishing is the day-drinkable Kölsch, which features a leaping Orca on the label. “We wanted to utilize that unique identity into a balance of iconic, bold illustration and clean typography,” says senior designer Chad Gowey. “Unmistakably, confidently Alaskan.”
Juneau, Alaska
Good Word Brewing & Public House: Never Sleep
The fuzzy-textured, children’s book look of Never Sleep IPA comes from Atlanta-based illustrator Rachel Eleanor. “I love utilizing gobs of texture, color, and detailed linework,” she says. “I’m inspired by traditional printing techniques and all the fuzzy little accidents that happen when putting ink to paper.”
Duluth, Georgia
Sonoma Springs Brewing Co.: Simcoe Sunset
“Some of the freshest beer cans are inspired by throwbacks,” says Chad Gowey, a senior designer at Blindtiger. This hazy IPA, heaped with fragrant pine and tropical fruit, takes its cues from bygone psychedelic concerts. “Simcoe Sunset gave us the chance to dust off our favorite gig-poster books for inspiration and make an homage to 1970s grooviness.”
Sonoma, California
Bottle Logic Brewing and Moksa Brewing Co: Sky Chase
Husband-wife design studio Emrich Office channels 8-bit video games with Sky Chase, a double IPA that could double as a lost scene from a 1980s Nintendo. The beer is part of the brewery’s Covalent collaboration series, each brewery’s name linked in a graphic that evokes a molecular bond. “In the same way a covalent bond involves the sharing of electron pairs between atoms,” Emrich Office has written. “Bottle Logic collaborates with their fellow brewers-in-arms.”
Anaheim & Rocklin, California
Thin Man Brewery: Trial By Wombat
Wombats might look cuddly, but when startled, the muscular marsupials can charge humans or hiss through bared incisors used to gnaw roots and bark. Instead of itching for a fight, try Trial By Wombat, where a frightening label is matched by a frighteningly delicious beer. The hazy New England IPA is made with peachy Galaxy hops, native to the marsupial’s Australian habitat.
Buffalo, New York
Fargo Brewing Co: Fargo Original (One-der Dogs edition)
The charitable North Dakota brewery partnered with 4 Luv of Dog Rescue on a special run of its Fargo Original lager. The labels featured six sheltered “One-der Dogs” that had a tough time finding a forever home, including Bizzy, Nyx, Jensen, Virginia, Hobie, and Moby.
Fargo, North Dakota
Almanac Beer Company: Sunshine & Opportunity
The Bay Area brewery’s barrel-aged sour ale is named for California’s promise of a better life. The label from Los Angeles creative studio DKNG looks to the state’s gold rush, flakes sparkling, endless sunshine seemingly casting shadows on the colorful can.
Alameda, California
Trillium Brewing Company & Monkish Brewing: Insert Hip Hop Reference Everywhere
Before Spotify, there was the iPod, the device that let people carry their music collection everywhere. That inspired the label for this third and final collaborative IPA. “It was fun to take something so clean and digital and hand-draw it,” says designer Kevin Cimo, a cofounder of Fair Folk creative. He incorporated hidden messages throughout the drawing, including the track listing—3 of 3—and the time stamp that is the beer’s release date.
Boston, Massachusetts & Torrance, California
Shacksbury Cider: Lo-Ball
This spring, the Vermont cider maker will release Lo-Ball, a whiskey highball–inspired cider packaged in eight-ounce cans suited for crushing by the case. “We wanted the design to be as fun as possible,” Luke W. Schmuecker, a partner and the director of marketing. Lo-Ball is the company’s first collaboratively designed label. “We worked with Will Bryant to make the baseball character and Bart Sasso from Sasso & Co to build the branding and really tease out the baseball theme with the pennants and the scoreboard.”
Vergennes, Vermont
Wolves & People Farmhouse Brewery: Honeycone
At this year’s Society of Illustrators awards—the Oscars of product design—illustrator Jason Sturgill won a silver for his happy-bee Honeycone label. “With that classic gold color, it announces it’s a beer and fun at the same time,” founder Christian DeBenedetti says of the farmhouse IPA that contains raw wild honey. The label’s metallic sheen helps the can stand apart, both in your hand and on Instagram.
Newberg, Oregon
Evil Twin Brewing NYC:
Evil Twin regularly uses photographs and long descriptive sentences to illustrate its labels, such as this pricey predicament for NYC renters. The idea behind using pictures was inspired by California wineries, explains Evil Twin founder Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø. “It opens up a lot of opportunities where we can show images from New York City, the ingredients in the beer, or the person we collaborated with. With pictures, there really are no limits.”
Ridgewood, New York
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Resident Culture Brewing Company: Thunder Stud
The morbid yet memorable Thunder Stud label is the handiwork of Maryssa Pickett, Resident Culture’s multidisciplinary in-house artist. “We’ve let her run creatively across many different artforms and mediums and encourage her to stylistically direct her creations,” says Amanda McLamb, a brewery founder. “In her label art she’s incorporated every form from collage work to hand-drawn illustrations.”
Charlotte, North Carolina
Monday Night Brewing: Lay Low
Low-calorie beers have deluged the brewing landscape, few distinct in flavor or design. Monday Night nails both with Lay Low, its delicious new 90-calorie IPA done up with a dot-matrix design, Miami Vice–worthy typography and colors, and…a tiger? Yes, a tiger. We’re going to go ahead and crown this the king of low-cal IPs.
Atlanta, Georgia
Foam Brewers: Built to Spill
The Burlington brewery names many of its beers after iconic indie-rock bands and their albums, including Pavement, Modest Mouse, and Galaxie 500. For the brewery’s Built to Spill IPA, designer Jackson Tupper created a mind-expanding outer-space illustration that takes inspiration from the band’s sprawling songwriting. “Hidden within the artwork are clues that tie directly to the lyrics of their song ‘Big Dipper,’” Tupper has said.
Wild Heaven Beer: Garden Beer
Wild Heaven works with the Atlanta Botanical Garden on “seasons” of Garden Beer that feature ingredients such as basil or Makrut lime leaves. You’ll find each season’s signature ingredients illustrated on the lovely colorful labels, which would also look grand monogrammed on a doily or framed and printed for your kitchen wall.
Avondale Estates, Georgia
Ex Novo Brewing Co.: Kill the Sun
“A big, classy beer deserves a bold, classy package,” creative director Jeremy Backer says of the brewery’s massive imperial stout. “We stripped away all the unnecessary elements and let the matte-black shrink wrap and metallic wordmark do the talking.” Ex Novo distinguishes the beer’s variants by altering the word mark’s color.
