The Artwork

I have a theory that there are four levels of beer lovers:

1. I love to drink beer
2. I prefer to drink craft beer because it has better flavor and more variety
3. I want to make my own beer to create interesting new flavors
4. I want to open a brewery and share my beer with other people who love beer

When I was at level 3, I did a lot of experimenting and one of the challenges of that was trying to remember what was in which bottle. The obvious solution is to make labels for the beers. But it’s not my style to just stick a label with some text on the bottle. So, I started searching for some images on line. I knew I wanted to put animals on the labels and I thought that since I was focusing mostly on Belgian styles, it would be fun to have animals native to Belgium on the labels. I knew I wanted the strongest beer (the quad) to be the boar because boar hunting is a huge deal in the Ardennes, and I knew I wanted to have a raven because that was the name of a bar we used to frequent in Bruxelles, but beyond that, nothing popped into my head for the other six animals I would need.

Seeking inspiration, I googled “Animals native to Belgium” and the first link was an article titled “8 Animals Native to Belgium”. This was, to me, a sign that the universe was behind my idea. I wrote down the animals, and proceeded to assign each one a style. I decided to start looking for art on the internet hoping to find images that were classy, attractive, and free to use. While combing the vast wasteland of the internet, I popped on to Facebook to catch up with what my friends were up to. It happened that Kirsten DeLayne Lauer Karahan, a friend from school in Waterloo who now teaches art in Turkey, posted a painting of monkeys that she had done. On a lark, I sent her a message asking if she would be up for a little art project doing similar paintings of the 8 animals in my lineup. To my delighted surprise, she was very enthusiastic about the project as she had just started summer break and was looking for inspiration. We had a good deal of fun talking about the critters and catching up. As you can see below, the results are amazing.

Once I put the labels on my beers, I noticed that when I took my beer to parties and served it to friends, people reacted differently. A label on a bottle seems to signal to folks that this is something that can be trusted.

As I move from level 3 to level 4, I had to start thinking about what to call the place. Once again, I turned to google. I considered a lion since it figures prominently in my Belgian experience as we lived mere miles from the lion of Waterloo and the lion is featured in the Belgian royal crest. But lion’s aren’t actually native to Belgium (SURPRISE!) so it didn’t really fit with the motif. But when I searched for Belgian national animal, I noticed that the Kestrel is the national bird of Belgium. The kestrel is the smallest member of the falcon family so it fits both the small but powerful country of Belgium and the vision of opening a small gastropub that punches above its weight as a brewery.

After I enrolled in the San Diego State University Craft Brewery Management program (since renamed “Business of Craft Beer”), one of my classes explained the elements required in creating a label that will satisfy the requirements of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB for short) and the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (CABC). Interestingly, you only need the approval of the former if you intend to sell your beer across state lines. Armed with this knowledge, I embarked on redesigning my basic labels to be TTB compliant.

Here is Kirsten’s beautiful artwork:

And there’s one more to come as there’s been another beer added to the lineup. But that’s another story for another day …