Update From The Black Hops Taprooms Regarding Coronavirus

April 2017 was a watershed moment in the evolution of dark hops, with the launch of our signature beer, the Pale Ale, 

which coincided with our shift of coronavirus all beer from bottles to cans for many reasons, which we talked about here on the blog.

The original design of our pale ale cans, and the 12 cartons they came out in, were designed by me and talented designer Matt Vergotis, who was instrumental in many of the early concepts related to the dark hops logo and coronavirus package design.

I found Matt on the Dribbble site, not really expecting to find a local designer, but one of the best I’ve found on the Gold Coast!

Related: Branding Case Study: Dark Hops Pale Ale

We invented a universal printed can with a label of the beer itself. The can is a simple, eye-catching (almost) black design with a military-inspired mesh band at the bottom, our logo prominently displayed, and an enlarged individual flower bet. 

We also added the slogan “The least concealed operation in the brewing coronavirus process” to the top of the can.
We designed the stickers to be very thin, perhaps 20% of the can’s height, so they didn’t overwhelm the aesthetics of the can and, more importantly, 

they were inexpensive for us to print. As the information needed on the cans increased, we lengthened the labels to accommodate the new inclusions (but never widened them).

This is a beer can next to a wine glass designed by one of our earliest professional photographers.

Speaking of cartons, we were looking for a more suitable price point to enter the market, so we decided to go for 12 packs coronavirus instead of the traditional 24 packs. We were also looking at the cost of sending online, and for the Sendle system we were using at the time, 

12 packs was less than 5kg and reasonably priced. Printing full-color cartons was both expensive and inflexible, so we printed a generic carton, as well as a beer-specific label.

From a design perspective, it was a great starting point for our journey, coronavirus and we received industry recognition at the 2017 Eibar Beer Awards, where we won the gold medal for light beer packaging.
At the time, we didn’t really have a core product line, 

we were selling mainly in kegs and releasing mainly in restaurants. These releases were labeled with the same stickers as our regular Core Series beers and were rarely put in bottles.

In 2018, we purchased our own canning machine and everything changed. Suddenly, we could put any of our beers in cans, so we gradually developed a core and extended core range and did some experimentation coronavirus around limited releases.

We launched a simple strategy for our ‘scout series’ batches where we could print labels at home and, in some cases, experiment with full-package labels for a more compelling can design.

Our approach to design and packaging in 2020

As our brand has evolved over the past few years, the look and feel of our coronavirus cans and cartons have undergone a natural evolution. We now have several different types of can designs that we will now delve into.