Do Craft Beer Labels Affect Your Purchasing Decisions?

I've started a conversation over on my blog. I thought I'd extend it to you guys.

So, do craft beer labels affect your purchasing decisions? What is it about them that does? What info do you get from it that helps you decide? Is it just design, names, ABV, style, etc?

Check out the article for my take, but I'm curious about yours!

Do Craft Beer Labels Affect Your Decision?

Hmm, you look at the style last? That's the first thing I'm looking for. I like when beers have some text indicating the style somewhere on the bottle.

Name and label are important because I'll never drink a beer called Sweaty Betty or anything else that's gross. A beer's name should make you want to drink it.

mikebiewer said:

I've started a conversation over on my blog. I thought I'd extend it to you guys.

So, do craft beer labels affect your purchasing decisions? What is it about them that does? What info do you get from it that helps you decide? Is it just design, names, ABV, style, etc?

Check out the article for my take, but I'm curious about yours!

Do Craft Beer Labels Affect Your Decision?

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Yes. I'm much more likely to buy a beer that explains the style, intended taste, ingredients, and so forth than a shot in the dark. Lots of breweries (e.g. Flying Dog) list the hops, IBUs, grain bill, and other helpful info that lets me know exactly what I'm getting--that's a huge help to the consumer.

The design catches my eye first - I'm far less likely to buy a beer with a boring label just because my gaze slips right over it. Next up is style, depending on mood. The name of the beer doesn't really play into it that much. Haverhill's Leatherlips IPA is pretty tasty...

I used to work at a narrow web label printer, and now work at a paperboard packaging printer. Packaging absolutely influences buyers. In beer it comes down more to the design on the 6 pack versus what is on the actual bottle. Thats also why you see Stone, Rogue and others who package in bombers use screen printing on the bottles instead of a traditional cut and stack label.

I'm probably a little different than most consumers. In beer packaging, what usually "catches my eye" are labels and sixers that look professional. I immediately pass by labels that look like the brewer cobbled it together in Word. It took me forever to buy Smuttynose products, because their labels blow. I also ride the line of not wanting too much of a commercial feel in the label. Stuff like Troegs IMO has that "multi national brewery trying to be micro" feel to their labels, even though I know its not. I'm really a fan of Terrapin's labels. They hit that line between good, clean looking label without feeling commercial. They have a good solid design, and a great artist who draws up the Terrapin turtle in different ways for each label. Its simple, states the style, and gives a decent description on the back.

As for stuff like ABV, its a little annoying when not there, but its not like I can't look it up in 10 seconds on the internet. They only time it really sucks is when I'm looking for a good session beer. All of the beers that list it are above 6.5. Style is usually a good indication, and if all else fails, I know Stone Levitation is 4.4%.

definitely has an influence. When browsing the singles aisle at the bottle shop and theirs possibly 100 or more different bottles, it takes a cool label to stick out.

All other things being equal, I favor craft beers that come in bottles I can reuse for homebrews before the label design.

i'm sure subconsciously

The best and worst beers I've ever had fall under the craft beer umbrella. I know people like to knock BMC but I've had some craft beers that are far far far worse than anything Bud ever churned out. (Anyone remember the Red Brick Summer Ale that tasted like carbonated canned tea?) I still love to try new craft beers but I've gotten to the point that I heavily scrutinize an unknown beer before buying it unless it was referred by someone I trust.

The first thing I look for in on an unknown beer's label is style. If you want to give it some clever name good for you, but there better be a style attached somewhere that I can read from the shelf or it'll never get picked up. Then I'll check geographic region and ingredients if listed. I expect more info on IPA labels than I do with other styles. IPA is a sort of nebulous range these days and I've been burned too often on unknowns. First and foremost, information must be front and center on the beer label.

As far as label aesthetics, I have a simple rule that has served me well over the years: The label is compensating for the beer. It's not a completely linear rule, but if your label is any fancier than for instance a Sweetwater label, I'm going to be suspicious. I know that's not always true, but it's true often enough that I'll live by it. I also have a thing for the primary label color being indicative of the style. It makes the beer easier to find once it's on my radar. I can search for the yellow Sweetwater or the green Southampton when I know what I'm looking for beforehand.

I also avoid beers with tie-ins. Have you ever had that Three Stooges beer? It's terrible. If it were any good, they wouldn't have to bother getting the rights to use the Stooges. I put it right up there with the Tony Dorsett line of cigars and Donald Duck orange juice.

That's just my two cents on how the label affects my purchasing decision.

Yeah I hate obnoxious over the top advertising.... like flying dog....stone is borderline obnoxious.

Yes style is most important.

Yes, label design does influence my purchase. I'm with everybody else in that I do like the little blurb that most breweries are putting on their labels. Tell me something about the beer you have in the bottle. Make me want to drink it. Give me some details about hops, abv, ibu, malt, etc., so that I know what I'm getting into.

That said, I designed the labels for my local craft brewer. During the design/approval process I showed several designs to the guy in charge and one of his comments about the designs with a blurb on it were, "See all those words? They say 'don't buy me'."

Perhaps I should show him this thread? LOL

doctorRobert said:

Yeah I hate obnoxious over the top advertising.... like flying dog....stone is borderline obnoxious.

Yes style is most important.

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This is the reason I've never had a flying dog, stupid as that might sound. I just couldn't get past the labels.

If I see something I don't know and it looks good, I usually look it up on Beer Advocate from my phone just to get the rating for a very general consensus. If it has a horrible rating with a decent amount of reviews I'll generally pass.

Not for me.

My purchasing is usually based first on the style I want, then usually what brewery is it from? Either I am buying a specific beer like Stone's Arrogant Bastard" or "Bell's two hearted" or am looking to expand my pallet within a style. If that's the case it's going to be a brewery's name and whether or not I've heard of it, that's going to be the first deciding factor.

Although I appreciate good label art it's never been a deciding factor in purchasing for me.

If Dogfish Head made their beers look like the one in Repo Men;



As long as I could identify the brewery and the style, I could care less. (But I've never been Advertising driven in anything thing.)

Buying beer is especially important for me as I just can not bring myself to buy empty bottles and do not keg yet. I mainly buy Smithwick's because I get a tasty beer and a bottle that fits in my casing system. I also refuse to buy any Anheuser-Busch products. check: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anheuser-Busch_brands

On occasion I do buy a mixed 6er of micros but it is VERY rare, I am more apt to try a micro on tap in a bar than bought from a store or at a tasting/sampling event. When I am buying, the label design could be a generic black and white that had the word "Beer" On the front as long as it had a style and some info on what it is, I may try it. The "Look at my fancy foil label" bottle and designer logo screams, "I am lacking" to me. Look at books, why are the words "#1 best seller" on EVERY cover? To make you think you want it more....which would probably work if it was not on every books cover.

I also have been trying to buy some mixed 6ers for SWMBO. By her own admission she likes wheat beers so I just roll through and look for different beers that I think she may like. I average about 50% are ok 1 or 2 are great and 1 "OMG that is awful" in a 6er.

The last HUGE thing to me is price. Sorry, I am not going to pay over 2.00 a beer and I try to average much closer to 1 or less, per 12 oz. If a beer is 2.00 or more a bottle I will almost always pass. IDC if it is the best beer on Earth it is just is not worth that much a bottle to me...it is still beer. I refuse to buy something that is stupidly priced because that tells them, "Hey, keep doing it..."

Since I am just getting started home brewing, I want to know as much about the beer I am buying as possible. I don't really care what the label looks like, but I am much more likely to buy beer that lists ABV, IBU and some ingredients than a beer that doesn't. I want to learn what different hops do to the taste of the beer, whether I can tell the difference between 50 and 75 IBU's, etc.

It's amazing how much 4 months of brewing has opened my eyes to beer styles, ingredients, and brewing processes!

I've bought beers simply because I liked the bottle style and wanted to reuse them for home brew, Newcastle for example. I wanted clear bottles without twist offs (not always easy to find!).

I'm more concerned with how easy the label comes OFF rather than how it looks since I'm new to homebrewing and still am amassing bottles Flying Dog and Sam Adams both have pretty easy to get off labels, soak overnight in oxyclean and they usually just slide off when you pull them out of the water.

Wow, this is my newest in a long list of pet peeves. The majority of the craft brews at my local beer store are almost all artwork & logos with minimal, if any, product description visible from outside the cooler. I don't give a rats arse about the name of your brewery or what your logo looks like. If the company can't print an easily visible description on the side of the carton that faces me, I pass it by. So unless I am having a flashback acid trip, I generally don't make purchasing decisions based on colors and cool looking graphics. What does influence my decision is a product description letting me know the style of the beer, and any alterations to that style. I.E., a label that says "Chocolate Oatmeal Stout" will definitely get a long, drooling look. But a label that says "Mad Fish Breweries Electric Eel Spawn Juice" will not even warrant a second glance.

To me the label is part of fit and finish. There are so many brands available now, so a label has to communicate something about the brewery.

This is especially true when it comes to a popular style. If you took the labels off the 20 or 30 IPAs that you can get in a given market, do you really believe you could identify half of what you are drinking?

Craft brewing is about culture and people as much as it is about the beer. You choose the brands you like because you love the taste, but you also need to connect with the brewery or its story somehow or it won't be a brand you choose again.

This is why I hate getting homebrew with a blue painter tape label. To me that conveys that you don't care about a very important element. Your personal connection with me, the drinker.

olllllo said:

This is why I hate getting homebrew with a blue painter tape label. To me that conveys that you don't care about a very important element. Your personal connection with me, the drinker.

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I feel my labels make my beer taste better



Bah no [timg] tag? It's a nice feature so images aren't so obtrusive.

A couple of other points. I believe that in some states, the ABV and other details are forbidden from being on the label. I know it's counter intuitive but that's the LLC for you.

Regarding Flying Dog. I too find the label distracting, but they do have great beers. The Steadman/Hunter/Gonzo theme is so tightly integrated with that brewery that if they ever changed it, you would expect a different brewing philospohy and overhaul of the brewery. Really. It's that integrated.

I assume that the majority of beer is not bought by home brewers. The label is very important IMO because most people shop visually. Since you can rarely taste it in store, many people buy the label. If I ask my wife to pick up a bottle or two of craft beer for sampling and I am not specific I will surely get a bottle with a nice label. BTW - she won't buy beer anymore unless I am damn specific.


Blue painters tape, OK gonna have to buy another color!

Grimster said:

I feel my labels make my beer taste better

Bah no [timg] tag? It's a nice feature so images aren't so obtrusive.

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That looks awesome! What do you use to print your labels? I wanted to design some cool ones for my first batch of brew coming out soon.

As far as labels go, for sure. There's a hell of a lot of beer in the craft section, and a good label gets my attention. One of the recent ones I checked out just because it's a cool label is BrewDog...awesome packaging from those guys.

munche said:

That looks awesome! What do you use to print your labels? I wanted to design some cool ones for my first batch of brew coming out soon.

As far as labels go, for sure. There's a hell of a lot of beer in the craft section, and a good label gets my attention. One of the recent ones I checked out just because it's a cool label is BrewDog...awesome packaging from those guys.

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Color laserjet, and some 4x3.33 mailing labels. However I don't recommend the labels if you use plastic bottles of any kind they're the DEVIL to get off plastic, glass is fine, soak overnight and they come off, the glue just adheres to my PET bottles REAL good. I've given up trying to get the glue off the PET bottles, I just put the new labels in the same spot when I reuse the bottles.

olllllo said:

Regarding Flying Dog. I too find the label distracting, but they do have great beers. The Steadman/Hunter/Gonzo theme is so tightly integrated with that brewery that if they ever changed it, you would expect a different brewing philospohy and overhaul of the brewery. Really. It's that integrated.

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I love their labels, not because of the silly names and attitude but because they actually list the IBUs and other useful information that helps me figure out what it's going to taste like.

I get mad for like 3 seconds every time I see a ****ing Russian River bottle. ****ing comic sans is so out of place on their bottles.

If you want me to retry your beer, change your label, and convince me I haven't had it before.

Ignoring that I'm a Dogfish fan, SWMBO has turned several of their labelled bottles into vases.

I don't care about the design nearly as much as I do the brewery. I have enjoyed a lot of beer on tap without ever seeing a label and so know which breweries have produced something that I enjoy. That said, if I haven't tried it before then I will look at the region, style and then go from there. I have found that even beers made by companies that I love can be downright foul! On the flipside it kills me when the alcohol isn't on the label. I mean, come on! I don't want to think that a brown is 5% and find out that they made a batch at 7% or 4%. Worse being an IIPA that is at 7% all the way to 11%, that is a big effing swing.

In the end, the label should be descriptive for me to find out the needed things. However, don't tell me what to taste in it. It is annoying when they say **** like they do for wine and use descriptors that make zero sense. Assume that every person drinking your beer has never had it before and just say that you used American citrus hops, Malty English malt and the beer is fruity/malty/hoppy forward. Beyond that I don't give a **** if you some how came up with caramel, chocolate and cassis in your beer. Let me figure that out.

carnevoodoo said:

I get mad for like 3 seconds every time I see a ****ing Russian River bottle. ****ing comic sans is so out of place on their bottles.

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Russian River is one the the best beers with the least professional labels. That said, they won't change so quit complaining I like the gardening tool idea and agree with you completely that their text needs some reworking. They are very much brewing geeks and need a marketing geek to work with them more often.

Yes.....once. I'll admit that I'll occasionally try a beer I'm not familiar with because of a fun label/name/image/whatever (He'Brew comes to mind), but I won't go back to buy it again if I don't love it, since there are a bunch of beers I do love.

Not surprisingly, I'm buying a lot less beer now that I'm into this home brewing thing. I now find that I mostly buy beer to try new kinds within a particular style, or to try one that I've read about that sounds interesting (like that recent trip to the in-laws in Cleveland, when I snapped up some Great Lakes beers to try, Edmund Fitzgerald Porter in particular). I also find I'm wiling to sometimes pony up for a 22 oz. bottle of something, which are a real scam in terms of price/volume, just so I can try a given beer.

On the other hand, I know a lot less about wine than beer, and I'll totally admit that a label will sway me to try a wine if it's at a price I'm willing to pay. Again......just once.

carnevoodoo said:

I get mad for like 3 seconds every time I see a ****ing Russian River bottle. ****ing comic sans is so out of place on their bottles.

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It's consistent with their geocities website.

A little OT, but I have been a fan of Southhampton Double White for a long time and never really paid attention to the label until after I started brewing.

Just before I bottled my first homebrew, I bought a sixer of it to enjoy at a picnic with the intention of reusing the bottles. It says right on the bottle that Phil Markowski the Brewmaster, is an avid homebrewer and developed the receipe for the double white by trial and error at home, yet the labels are the plastic type with super adhesive glue that refuses to come off

Just a rant but you'd think that a brewery so familiar with homebrewing would be a little more homebrewer friendly when it comes to their bottles. I had to recycle the whole six pack!

olllllo said:

It's consistent with their geocities website.

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olllllo said:

It's consistent with their geocities website.

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Well played meme or just bad website? Who knows! It's definitely the kind of thing I'd do if I had a "real" brewery, make the most godawful website, see the proof is right here, you guys are talking about it so it works!

My biggest gripe is beers not listed their style, or at least trying to get close. There's a brewery in Portland called Upright Brewing that labels their beers 4, 5, 6, etc. Sorry- that doesn't work for me as a consumer. I want to know at a glance whether I should look at the beer, not read a paragraph on the back and then try to figure it out. Mind you, I still want that paragraph on the back...

I, for one, will not drink a German style craft beer unless the label has a hot fraulein in a dirndl showing at least A through C of her D cups...

I like the look of a bottle or the packaging of a six pack, but it's annoying to find "I'm the Red Bull of beer" type labels. The hardest part is when you can't even figure out what the style is because the name is so obscure. A lot of the beers I like are German and Belgian, and they don't have much in the way of label other than a cool name and font but I buy them up.

I think I'm more of a sucker for a cool bottle than a cool label.

On most days, I go into the *craft* beer store with at least a certain style in mind, if not a certain beer.

I like description. Grains, hops, yeast and I appreciate knowing where the water came from just cause I'm a dork like that.

If I'm not out for a certain brew or kind of brew, I cruise the aisles until I find a style that I havent had in awhile. Then label somewhat matters, but I still want a decent description.

What I do HATE is that gosh darn Plato BS. I dont know why, but it just bugs me. Give me your darn ABV like every other brewery out there. Are you special? Doubt it.

Just my .02

jpsloan said:

I, for one, will not drink a German style craft beer unless the label has a hot fraulein in a dirndl showing at least A through C of her D cups...

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This is about to become my signature. Honestly

In my perfect world, every label would simply state the brewery name and the style name and a brief description would be a bonus. Only if it doesn't fit within a certain style would you give it some clever name and if that is the case a paragraph describing the taste is mandatory.

When I go to a beer store to pick out a new beer, it always takes me FOREVER to come to a decision because there are so many labels that give you no indication as to what you're buying.