Help: Words/characteristics to describe beer?

I'm creating a label and want to come up with 3 or 4 characteristics that appropriately describe the beer using pictures. So far, things that have come to mind are: malt, bitterness, aroma (hops)....

The problem is I need to describe whatever 3-4 characteristics I go with pictures...i.e. Maltiness = malt. Not sure how I would describe aroma?

Thanks for your help!

it depends on if the aroma is bad maybe a piece of sh#t
if the aroma is good maybe a nose with a big smile under it.

you could also put a face with two x's for the eyes

cheers

or better yet ...a steaming pile with an X or cross through it....meaning it doesnt smell like crap......Id like that.....it isnt what it is...its what it isnt type of deal

Haha. I should clarify... I want to use one picture for each characteristic regardless of the beer and then rank it on a scale of 1 to 4. For example, a barley wine would maybe be a 3 on the malt and 3 on the hops/bitterness. A porter would be a 4 on the malt and a 1 on the hops. So if I go with hops and malt, what would be a good third or fourth characteristic? Also, I feel hops can be vague as hops additions can be very aromatic with little bitterness or vice-versa...

Could you flesh out this concept for me. I am not understanding what the pictures are for. Are they for people unfamiliar with beer? For you when too drunk to read the labels? For the fun of assigning a grade to beer? I like your idea I just don't understand what it would be most helpful for.

Sorry for being confusing. The idea is to create a unique labeling system them basically describes the 3-4 main characteristic of any beer. The numbers would be imposed on the same pictures every time (hops, malt, etc.) Once implemented, anyone could pick up a beer and basically get a quick rundown of what they will be drinking. For example, a Porter would top the charts on malt, a 4, and almost no hops, 0-1. For this to work however, the picture the number is imposed on has to be fairly self explanatory. Which brings me to my concern with hops...which can provide bitterness and aroma, but can provide them separately. How do I tell a consumer these characteristics using a self explanatory picture? I can't think of a picture that accurately represent aroma... But then again maybe aroma shouldn't be on of my labeling characteristics?

Sorry for the rant and thanks for the help!!!

maybe for the hops, if its not a very hoppy beer then you can have a picture of one hop cone with a sort of steam coming from it representing aroma. Then for your hoppy IPA's you can have multiple hop cones to depict the more hops you used..

Two ideas; How about a gradient horizontal bar with dark brown at one end & pale yellow at the other w/ a "slider" to indicate relative maltiness. Could do the same thing with hops, only use one hop at the low end & 4 or 5 at the high end (as suggested above). If you want to stick strictly to pictures, maybe one barley grain/5 barley grains. How would you classify IIPA, which are often pretty light in color but can have a huge malt backbone to support the massive hops?

Thanks for the feed back! At this point I'm really trying to stick to the pictures and numbers because it fits into my theme and the label design I have had a friend help me draft up already. If the numbers don't work, the idea of quantity or color of the malt/hops is intriguing.

As far as the IIPA question...well you would have to taste the beer and rate it accordingly. At the end of the day, it's just a fun/clever way of providing a very basic description of the beer. A consumer could pick it up and see a 4 on hops and know that it wasn't for them.

I already have a picture for malt...the question is what should the other 2-3 pictures be. I need to include hops somehow...maybe I just disregard aroma and just focus on hop character regardless if it's proving bitter, aroma or flavor.

you could do like midwest supplies does in their cat-for beer kits.....sort of a pictogram.......or maybe take the hop from green to the color of the beer.....

I wasn't familiar with he Midwest kits...just checked them out. They use color and then hop bitterness, flavor and aroma.

I like the idea. Would definitely continue using malt in mine...still not sure what picture to use for color or aroma. I feel like the bitterness picture could be hops, because the dominate feature of them.

So a hop pic for bitterness and a nose pic for aroma?

I've thought about the nose, but not sure if I want to portray a nose on my beer. Not the most visually pleasing.

reinstone said:

it depends on if the aroma is bad maybe a piece of sh#t
if the aroma is good maybe a nose with a big smile under it.

you could also put a face with two x's for the eyes

cheers

Click to expand...

Btw, I really hope I would never need to describe a beer via a pile of sh#t*. :X

Lol

Skunk?

I think that's worse then the nose. Lol

I agree with one of the other posts. a image of grain.... image of a hop..... image of hop with 3 wavy lines above it

And don't forget a falling down drunk guy icon for ABV!