10 Most Badass Craft Brewery Logos

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10 Most Badass Craft Brewery Logos
Making your homebrew look as professional as possible will impress your friends, and could make it taste better--the mind can play tricks on us. Would you rather have your buddies drink your beer from a plain brown bottle, or would you prefer to show off an awesome custom logo? That's what we thought.
Design has a huge impact on the way beer is perceived. I realized recently that I've been buying beer depending on how cool the packaging is. And that made me think: what are the most badass craft brewery logos, ever? And how can other people learn to make their own labels just as badass? Here's what happens when brew maker meets logo maker:
1. Our Brewing Company
That mustache. Go and tell that guy he's not a badass. With beers such as the Peanut Butter Molasses Porter, the Cursed Kettle Quadruppel, and the Dungeon Master Black IPA, Our Brewing Company means business. The colors are subtle, but the image is strong, and make us all think of our badass grandfathers.The font is authoritative and the elliptical shape makes it look like a badge or emblem. The overall shape also is a perfect fit for a 12 oz. beer bottle label.
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Holland, Michigan
2. Firefly Hollow Brewing Co.
This is probably the coolest thing to ever come out of Bristol, Connecticut. The sketchiness of the drawing makes this logo. In 2015, the biggest logo trend is to have a flat logo and a basic, modern font. Firefly Hollow's logo defies both of these by having depth and its own custom font to match. The color scheme is simple and economical--it doesn't cost too much to print in only two colors.
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Bristol, Connecticut
3. Flying Dog Brewery
This is probably the flashiest logo on this list, but that doesn't make it bad. It grabs your attention right away. Whether you're trying to figure out why someone hand-drew a Batman symbol on a beer bottle or doing some research on making your own colorful stained glass bat wings, this logo demands notice. The only thing I'm wondering is, where's the dog?
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Frederick, Maryland
4. Blank Slate Brewing Company
Simple. Clean. Tough. Timeless. Although this logo may look like nothing special, it has all the ingredients to making a great and memorable design. Operating out of an old airplane hangar, Blank Slate's motto is: "Our minds may be empty...our beer is not." This logo embodies that message. They're not about the flash or glam of the brewing life,they make a good product that does its job well.
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Cincinnati, Ohio
5. Junction Craft Brewing
Junction's hockey-playing and guitar-strumming president Tom Paterson seems to also love trains. A majority of Junction's beer line refers to different members of a train's crew (Engineer's IPA, Conductor's Craft Ale, Stationmaster's Stout). In terms of design, this is a strong logo. It ties the two concepts together--trains and beer--and states its presence with clarity.
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Toronto, Ontario
6. Walkerville Brewery
Legendary Canadian alcohol manufactured Hiram Walker started Walkerville in 1890 to provide his customers with an "Honest Beer." That's badass enough by itself. The logo only adds to the toughness. The strong ship. The confident block sans serif font of "Walkerville" versus the arced serif font of "Brewery." The hard corners stuck in a circle. The juxtaposed aspects of this logo really give it merit.
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Windsor, Ontario
7. Daredevil Brewing Co.
This one's just really cool. Again, we have a simple design that does the trick. But, the image can be taken two ways: first, you can see a stuntman's helmet with goggles and the strap going around. Look again and you'll see the letter "D" with racing stripes coming from it, surrounded by a red halo-type semi-circle. Pretty awesome.
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Speedway, Indiana
8. Banded Horn Brewing Co.
This one's a little different than the others on our list. It has some three-dimensional aspects to it, uses more colors, and has clear imagery. Seems like a pretty basic logo, but all of these work well together to make a really cool logo. "We Shall Band Together" at the bottom seals the deal on this list for me.
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Biddeford, Maine
9. Grapevine Craft Brewery
I love the nostalgic feel to this one, and it does a good job of capturing that Texas spirit. Grapevine is only sold in North and Central Texas. The colors work well together, and that fading on edges really ties the whole thing together. It's rough, it's tough, and it does a great job of subtly letting us know it's main location.
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Grapevine, Texas
10. Monday Night Brewing
This one might be the winner. It doesn't say anything about the brand or the beer like many of the other logos did, but portrays a feeling more strongly than any others. The guy has his tie loosened and he's pumped. Why? Because it's Monday night and he can drink some beer in peace. Now that's badass.
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Atlanta, Georgia

***
Jake Dmochowski is a copywriter for LogoMix and is currently enrolled in journalism school at Boston University. LogoMix supplies businesses around the world with effective and memorable logos, business cards, and custom promotional products. In his spare time, Jake likes to correct other people's grammar, complain about exercising, and of course, drink great beer.

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I never got the flying dog one, but the train one's pretty cool. The dare devil one shows some thought.
 
Not sure I'm seeing it with a lot of these. "Firefly" doesn't look that good to me - until I read the name, it's not really obvious what I'm looking at and it's not particularly attractive. "Blank Slate" looks more like "Home Plate" to me (maybe it's just the time of year, but it looks like a baseball diamond). And Grapevine is just dull. I do like "Monday Night" and "Daredevil," though.
 
I thought the actual websites were more interesting....but, I am not into labels....yet.
 
Read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to understand the Flying Dog logo and Ralph Steadman's artwork a bit better - both true treasures!
 
I get the concept Blank Slate was going for (and they make good beer), but the logo is almost *too* plain. It can be easy to miss in the midst of a long tap line.
 
I would not buy a single one of these based on logo design. Honestly one of the worst collections of logos I have ever seen.
 
Glad to see Banded Horn! Some of the best beers I've had!
 
Nah, not even close. I'm personally pretty partial to Black Raven Brewery's icon:
http://images.askmen.com/top_10/travel/top-10-up-coming-beer-companies_327957.jpg
As well as Swamphead Brewing:
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/54adbb23e4b0342c02b9e475/54ae0ef5e4b0afa8bbd2e046/54ccf499e4b0679a823a288d/1422720869510/?format=1000w
And of course, there's Odin brewing, which probably has the best damn icon in brewing right now:
http://odinbrewing.com/web_images/odin_redlogo_small.png
 
"Junction's hockey-playing and guitar-strumming president Tom Paterson seems to also love trains."
This is funny to me..."The Junction" is a neighbourhood in Toronto where there is a major railway junction. Hence, the train...and the beer naming convention... :/
 
I've always loved the Walkerville Brewery logo! That being said, I'm partial, it's the flagship (pun intended) for craft beer in my hometown! ;)
 
I think most of those look pretty plain. One of my favorites is Legend Brewing Company. They have a detailed unicorn with hops and barley. It's also one of my favorite bottle caps (they've managed to get the unicorn on the cap in gold, with a black background).
 
Three Floyds branding is still pretty unique: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/94/ThreeFloydsLogo.jpg/220px-ThreeFloydsLogo.jpg
 
I don't think that Our Brewing even bottles, so the branding while fun doesn't go much outside of the small tasting room in Holland.
And as a local, branding isn't everything. If your in Holland and have never been to any of the local breweries/brewpubs, I'd recommend checking out New Holland Brewing which is half a block down from Our Brewing Company before Our to be honest.
 
While I love me some Firefly Hollow beers, and I definitely dig the logo, Firefly Hollow only qualifies as the coolest thing to come out of Bristol in the last 30 years of so. A certain worldwide sports network that darned near all of us watch at least once in a while while drinking our homebrews has to take the overall crown...
 
The Dardevil one is AWESOME! The rest are meh. Just petty much put a name on something and that is it. I know labels don't make the beer, but it may make you take a second look. I wish New Belgium wouldn't have swapped there tulip glass logo for that darned hippie bicycle. If you want a real good one look up Big Beaver from Loveland CO. Hehas a "mohawk". My wife who is very understanding still had me take that one off the kegerator because it made her uncofortable
 
Flying Dog should spend more time on beer, less on logos. See also, Rogue.
 
I hate to be "that guy" but these are actually 10 of the worst brewery logos I've seen. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here. Is it just me?
 
Yeah pretty much any label from Two Roads Brewing (http://tworoadsbrewing.com/beers), Odell Brewing Company (http://odellbrewing.com/beers/), Left Hand Brewing (http://lefthandbrewing.com/beers/), Stillwater Artisanal (http://www.stillwater-artisanal.com/), or Rogue (http://www.rogue.com/roguebeers/) destroys these labels. Was this post a joke held-over from April 1st?
 
There's some good one's up there; I dig the Our Brewing logo and on a similar note, definitely repping one of my favorite local breweries, Civil Live in St. Louis has my all time favorite set of logos: http://www.thecivillife.com/our-logos.html . The beer is absolutely off the charts as well!
 
I agree with ricshayne and brewbien...other than flying dog...bunch of duds!
 
Don't leave out Wicked Weed in Asheville. www.wickedweedbrewing.com
Or, Burial Beer Co. either, www.burialbeer.com
 
I couldn't agree more. I instantly recognized Ralph's artwork and immediately bought the beer based on the label alone.
Long live the Dr!
 
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