If there is one thing that the beer industry has the ability to make me lose sleep over it is the never dying trend of breweries ripping off other industries of their intellectual property and slapping it on a can or bottle label and claiming “inspiration” or “parody.” Okay, I probably don’t lose a lot of sleep over it but I certainly use a lot of my data texting and talking about these infuriating, lazy attempts at trying to be creative. And in the end it’s the same thing right?
To combat this festering hatred that has built inside my gut I decided to make a post last year commending breweries that go above and beyond to create beautiful, original artwork for their brands that stands out but is absolutely, 100% theirs. These breweries exhibit an integrity that is often overlooked by other aspects of brewing. Don’t get me wrong, integrity in the quality of one’s beer is extremely important to me and, more importantly, to these breweries. But I enjoy pointing out the little things in our industry that tend to be overlooked such as TTB compliant labeling and safety. How safety is overlooked is beyond me but it seemingly is because it’s just not a “cool” topic.