Do Craft Beer Labels Affect Your Purchasing Decisions?

[olllllo]

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.

It's consistent with their geocities website.

 

[kingmatt]

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!

 

[user 22118]

It's consistent with their geocities website.

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[Grimster]

It's consistent with their geocities website.

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!

 

[Thakog]

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...

 

[jpsloan]

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...

 

[Teromous]

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.

 

[BBKing]

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

 

[BBKing]

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...

This is about to become my signature. Honestly

 

[gannawdm]

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.

 

[olllllo]

Do we like this label?

 

[neovox]

I saw this on popurls this morning. I didn't realize these were that same folks that brew Tokyo. They also have an IPA "Sink the Bismarck" that claims to be 41% ABV. If my math is right, that would be more than 70 proof beer!

 

[carnevoodoo]

I saw this on popurls this morning. I didn't realize these were that same folks that brew Tokyo. They also have an IPA "Sink the Bismarck" that claims to be 41% ABV. If my math is right, that would be more than 70 proof beer!

Your math is sort of right. It'd be 82 proof in the States and a bit over 70 proof in the UK. So it depends on where you are.

 

[neovox]

So, in this case one 12oz beer basically = 12 82-proof shots.

 

[bctdi]

I look for brewery, then style, then abv, then bottling date.......pretty pictures and artwork don`t interest me except that I like breweries to have a distinct difference in their labels for each style because it makes it easier for me to remember which ones i`ve tried and liked or not liked. Flying Dog would be a prime example with their similar artwork for each style I can`t remember anymore which ones I`ve tried, so typically I bypass them alltogether.Avery does a good job of making a clear distinction between styles with their labels.

 

[A4J]

Packaging design plays an important role in most of my purchasing decision - the only exception being beer. I look for style first, then descriptor if any, then brewery. I don't really care what pretty picture there is on the label or the name.

 

[l1ranger]

a good picture might catch my eye and cause me to buy something, but more often than not, I'm looking for somethign I already like, or to try something different, and I'll generally try somethign different regardless of the label. if its good, I"ll come back to it again and again

 

[Zamial]

Do we like this label?

removed images....

so does that 32% and 41% taste decent considering? It does not matter to me if it is 80% ABV if it is awful or has to be "choked down". Thanks in advance!!!!

 

[olllllo]

so does that 32% and 41% taste decent considering? It does not matter to me if it is 80% ABV if it is awful or has to be "choked down". Thanks in advance!!!!

It's not mine. Found a post about it on the net. I don't think I would ever buy a bottle unless several people went in on it. It seems pointless to me.

 

[Laughing_Gnome_Invisible]

Labels, while some are eycatching and others not do not influence me.

Blurb does.

If I see a bottle with blurb that mentions how the extreme ( Hoppiness/Maltiness/Dead puppies) will blow you away and leave your senses dangling over a pit of boiling oil.......Then nah. F#ck buying that. I want to buy beer, not a silly marketing tool.

 

[Montanaandy]

I was just in Border's and came across a book that was titled something along the lines of "The Beer Trials" and was a takeoff on "The Wine Trials" (or Judgement In Paris) in which many popular beers were blind tasted. The strange thing was that while each beer was ranked on a 10 point scale, the authors also took pains to voice their pleasure or displeasure with the label on a particular beer (i.e. is it too crowded with info., are the graphics pleasing). Montanaandy

 

[mikebiewer]

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.)

Revvy, I think this is interesting that you mentioned this. My original post or idea was that the label contains information needed to make a decision. Part of the information that is on the label usually consists of which brewery it came from, therefore reputation. At least, that is how I see it.

So the real question is...what kinds of information are you looking for on a label when you make your decision. Forget about the pictures.

Thanks for your comment here!