THE BRANDED AND THE BEAUTIFUL
Innovative and inviting design is a must for Vancouver’s craft breweries and boutique distilleries
The explosion of new craft breweries and boutique distilleries in Vancouver over the past five years ― boosted by last year’s provincial liquor licensing changes that allow on-site tasting rooms ― means competition is increasingly stiff. Good design it seems — in bottles, labelling and tasting room interiors — is key to capturing craft drinkers.
“Something like 20 breweries opened up last year and everybody’s making good beer,” says Nate Rayment, managing director and partner of Postmark Brewing, launched earlier this year with his Vancouver Urban Winery partners.
Railtown’s Settlement Building, with its high ceilings and exposed beams — where Postmark, Vancouver Urban Winery and their shared tasting room, Belgard Kitchen, are based — is something of a brand collective, also housing FreshTap and the Roaring Twenties Wine Co.
“There’s so many fantastic products out there,” Rayment says. “So to have something that goes along with our beer that gives you a little bit of an element of who you are, a bit more branding, I think it was hugely important.”
To achieve this, Rayment and his partners went with local design agency Burnkit, who came up with Postmark’s clean West Coast esthetic, reflected in their name, tasting room, growlers and merchandise.
Standing out has been key to the success of East Vancouver’s Odd Society Spirits, general manager Miriam Karp says. Odd Spirits makes smallbatch, individually crafted vodka, gin, whisky and creme de cassis, and the design of their tasting room attracted a photo shoot with Wallpaper Magazine some days after the distillery’s opening in autumn of last year.
“People walk in and they may not know anything about distilling or don’t really have a technical interest in distilling, but they’re always staring at this equipment,” Karp says. “They tell us that the space is warm but very beautiful. It’s not cold.”
Achieving this look and the unique branding and bottling of their spirits, each one embraced like an individual personality and presented as such, took the help of branding and design company Cause + Affect, best known for their PechaKucha Night series.
“There’s this kind of quirkiness that comes from the brand,” Cause + Affect creative director Steven Cox says. “So there’s a number of different oddities that you would find in the space from a stuffed pheasant or skulls on the wall or paintings — a bit of a collector’s shop where the owners could let their own personalities show through a little bit. It was trying not to be overly trendy or overly styled.”
Cox has an architectural background, and his wife and business partner Jane Cox started out as an interior designer. They say Odd Society’s product has lived up to the look they helped give it.
“To give you an example, the vodka is an incredibly unique product — it’s a vodka made from barley, which is almost unheard of,” Cox says. “Usually vodka is made from the cheapest stuff you can get your hands on ― corn or wheat or potato or whatever it is — and these guys have made this almost what’s called a single malt vodka, and so to support that we created a brand that was incredibly unique,” Cox says.
With its vibrant orange packaging and signature owl character, Odd Society’s East Van Vodka has won product and packaging awards.
Designing a striking tasting room and consistent look was pivotal to the popularity of Main Street’s Brassneck Brewing, says Conrad Gmoser, who was head brewer at Steamworks Brew Pub for many years and launched Brassneck last year with the Alibi Room’s Nigel Springthorpe.
“For us, we always envisioned getting people to come to our brewery and selling most of our beer on site, and to do that you need a room that’s interesting and people are comfortable in,” Gmoser says.
“It’s a little different than putting all your focus on a brand and packaging that sits on a shelf in a storehouse.”
Though trained as an architect, Gmoser employed Simcic Uhrich Architects to renovate the 1940s building they’re based in, which was originally a furrier’s, wanting to keep the raw feel of the exposed concrete and fir.
Branding company Post Projects helped develop Brassneck’s look as seen in their tasting room, growlers and window.
“Brassnecking it is like going in with your eyes closed and hoping it works out, and there was a simplicity and confidence to that. So we wanted to reflect that in the identity, so we’re using bold, stark typography,” Post Projects creative director and partner Alex Nelson says.
Feedback from Brassneck’s customers, Gmoser says, is that they would choose to hang out there even if they didn’t drink beer, finding it welcoming and unpretentious. In January, Brassneck will begin small keg sales.
“We’ve had a really great year,” he says. “It’s surprised us how busy we are.”