Can Your Branding Tell the Story?

Building ​your brewery’s brand through can art is complicated. When it comes to branding Raised Grain​’s​ product, ​Nick ​Reistad brought up consumer experience over and over​ in an interview with Brewer​.

“It starts in the taproom where you have this really cool experience that people can have and then as you start to expand your range, how do you maintain that same spirit,” he asked​ in his May/June 2018 story about the Milwaukee, Wisconsin-area facility​. “We try to give each of the beers its own story because if you come into the taproom you get stories. You get to hear about the one time that I blew up a barrel (no one got hurt) or any story about any of the funny things that go on in a brewery.

“So you get to experience that firsthand when you’re sitting across the bar from people that are living that experience. How do you take that out? We try to tell that on a can and that just kind of wraps itself into the branding.”

Leslie Kaceus feels fortunate that her brewery — Bootstrap Brewing in Longmont, Colorado — is in an area where craft beer enthusiasts are more than willing to try new products and then talk about it to everyone they know.

It means that working with local craft beer buyers in both on- and off-premise can result in a positive outlook on new releases in packaging.

”We’re very methodical about what we release and spend a great amount of time market testing a product way before we decide to package it,” Kaceus said. “Our customers love it because we’re not just throwing a product out to see how it does — they know it will sell well.”

This philosophy started from Day No. 1 for Bootstrap and its paid dividends.

”We make only what we like to drink, market test it in the taprooms, then festivals, then put kegs out to restaurants,” Kaceus said of the marketing progression and penetration.” Only after success in these areas do we decide to put it in a can.”

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