The Session #55: Label, Coaster, and Cap Art

The SessionThe Session: collaborative beer blogging that occurs on the first Friday of each month, on a topic suggested by that month’s host. Ready? Go!

This month’s topic is hosted by HopHeadSaid and Curtis has suggested the topic of Label, Coaster, and Cap Art:

Posting Directions:

  1. Choose your favorite label, coaster or cap art.
  2. Scan, download or take a picture of your label, coaster or cap art.
  3. Write a paragraph that explains your affinity to your entry. Your explanation can be as shallow as or as deep as you want.
  4. If the brewery name or beer name is obscured be sure to label your entry to give credit where credit is due.

This probably comes as no surprise to anyone, but the label art that I keep coming back to when I’m thinking about this topic is Deschutes Brewery’s The Abyss. It’s my favorite label from Deschutes, though the annual Jubelale art is a close second. When it was first released in 2006, the label for this beer was such a departure from the usual Deschutes labeling style (with the exception of Mirror Mirror which came out the year before):

Deschutes Brewery's The Abyss label

Simplicity itself (the label actually gives the impression of being more red when on the bottle) and yet it’s totally distinctive: to this day this is a label I can immediately, unfailingly pick out of a lineup and indeed the visual evokes something akin to a Pavlovian response.

It’s simple, it’s elegant, it’s ornate (without being ornate) and to me the offset words (separated by the jagged line/”crack”) conveys the name and the experience perfectly. (“Sliding into the abyss” or something like that.)

And that’s all it needs to be.

2 comments

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.