A decade ago, designer Martin Piper was the lead creative at Amsterdam Brewery, one of Toronto’s oldest craft breweries. He first met print consultant Chris Downey after Downey reached out to discuss potential print projects. This casual business chat developed into a strong working relationship and a genuine friendship between the two.

Over time, Piper and Downey recognized that their complementary skills could truly assist emerging breweries, and this insight eventually led to Beer Branded. “It’s the perfect solution for start-up breweries,” said Piper. “With Beer Branded, you have a seasoned designer with the industry knowledge to provide production-ready art for your brewery’s needs, and an experienced consultant with the necessary relationships to make it all happen on budget and on time.”

But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit Canada in 2020, the Beer Branded concept was put on hold. Piper launched martinpaper.design, which provides branding, design and promotional strategies for clients across the beverage sector. Meanwhile, Downey developed his own print business, Evergreen Graphics Group, to supply labels, packaging, signage and merchandise for a wide range of independent and major breweries and beverage producers.

Then in 2024, while working on a new label system for Northwinds Brewery in Collingwood, Ont., the timing finally felt right to revive their original vision. The Beer Branded website was officially launched soon after, marking the start of Piper and Downey’s next chapter. “Beer Branded encompasses the needs of every beverage maker: brand development and marketing; print production for packaging and essentials, signage and merchandise; social media planning, development and content creation – all poured from one tap,” said Piper.

To complete their offerings, Breer Branded has added Jordan Buttress, an experienced photographer and videographer. This allows the company to support its clients’ digital media needs, alongside design and print.

Brand evolution

Branding in the craft beer sector is constantly evolving, shifting from what was once considered nostalgic and playful to increasingly sleek, professional and design-focused visual identities. Social media has also played a significant role in reshaping the branding landscape. The rise of glossy, rapid-fire five to 10-second clips and user-friendly drag-and-drop DIY design tools has introduced a whole new dimension to digital branding.

Moreover, as the brand market has expanded, breweries have found themselves competing with a highly diverse beverage industry. This is precisely the kind of environment where a strong brand could be the deciding factor in whether a product is chosen or left on the shelf. “It’s a challenging business climate, with tariffs impacting material costs, and we’re starting to see once-strong brands falter as companies must shift priorities and brand refreshes fall off the list,” said Piper.

Avoid the mistakes

Beer Branded approaches each project as a distinct challenge, never assuming that what worked for one brewery or beverage maker will work for another. Whether it stems from a flavour profile, brewing philosophy or innovative techniques, every product has its own story to tell.

Because there are only about three seconds to make a first impression, a product’s label or package is incredibly valuable visual real estate. This means branding must communicate quickly, clearly and intentionally. When designing your brand, it’s important to first look at other products on the shelf to avoid getting lost in the shuffle, while also still fitting in. This is the role of Beer Branded: to identify a product’s differentiator and bring it to life through careful, purposeful branding.

“I always ask prospective clients to send photos of the shelves in the communities where they plan to sell,” said Piper. “If it’s a new product, we’ll start with a simple like/dislike exercise to identify what works visually. If they already have products on the shelf, it gives us a great starting point for conversation to compare their current look to those around it.”

A well-designed label has become one of the most effective tools for influencing purchasing decisions on busy shelves. This is because when a customer approaches the cooler, their decision usually depends on three factors: loyalty, package design and beverage style.

“Let’s face it, most people already know what they like when they approach a shelf, and they’re looking for something specific and will gravitate towards the area where the product lives,” said Piper. “In this industry, it’s rare for someone to happen upon a shelf. It’s the label’s job to catch the eye and persuade the customer to deviate from their original purchasing plans.”

Going beyond the label

Extending a brand beyond the point of purchase is crucial for cultivating a loyal community of fans. When people can wear a brand or gather in a branded space that feels welcoming and familiar, their connection with the brand becomes emotional rather than purely transactional. This also increases the chances of building long-term loyalty.

“We’ve always made a habit of visiting breweries to immerse ourselves in the atmospheres they have crafted for their locals. Curating the right ‘vibe’ in a space to celebrate local culture while offering thoughtfully designed and produced merchandise can be a powerful tool that transforms a casual drinker into a brand ambassador,” said Piper.

Sustainability is another consideration, especially as it relates to the industry-wide shift from bottles to cans, thanks to aluminum’s lightweight, highly recyclable nature. Unfortunately, the label side of the industry hasn’t advanced at the same pace. Beer Branded provides a range of sustainable solutions.

“With margins being so tight and cost models being pulled in multiple directions, the sustainability of packaging sometimes falls off the list of priorities,” said Downey. “But our approach at Beer Branded is to offer more sustainable options. Whether it’s label materials or packaging board, it can all be tied back to the brand story with an authenticity stamp-like seal to make customers aware of the decisions made by the producer of the product.”

A legacy that lasts

When it comes to building a brand, consistency is everything. When a product delivers reliable quality, and the brand story stays true to itself, loyalty isn’t just possible; it becomes an expectation. But Piper warns that endurance is different from chasing constant growth, and there is conflict between building a tight-knit community around a brand and trying to create a product that appeals to the masses. Balancing those two goals is one of the biggest challenges in the craft beverage world.

“The goal is to find those answers early in your brand-building process, which allows us to search for the nuance in your products and pinpoint their specialty,” said Piper. “If you approach the process with consistency in production and messaging, your customers will share, they will grow and they will stay.”

The refresh was unveiled at WSET’s flagship annual graduation ceremony at the end of April, introducing a refreshed logo, a new strapline – Global Drinks Education – and restyled student pin badges, all designed to better represent what WSET is today and its future direction.

“Our revitalized brand goes beyond how we look, reflecting how WSET has evolved and where we’re heading,” said Michelle Brampton, WSET chief executive. “We’re driven by our updated purpose: to empower people and support the drinks industry from producer to consumer. This new identity is how we bring that purpose to life in everything that we do.”

We’re proud of our brand heritage and have retained key elements, while adapting it to better reflect a truly global organization that is inclusive, forward-looking and closely aligned to the needs of a growing worldwide community of students, educators and the wider industry.

Michelle Brampton, WSET chief executive

A brand built for today and tomorrow

The refreshed brand brings key changes, which include:

• A simplified name: WSET (replacing the full name, Wine & Spirit Education Trust)
• A modern, digital-ready logo that retains the heritage blue colour and oval shape – honouring WSET’s history
• A new strapline, Global Drinks Education, reinforcing WSET’s worldwide reach across wine, spirits, sake and beer
• Refreshed student pin badges using sustainable materials, with a clear colour-coded system to distinguish levels – bronze for Level 1, silver for Level 2, gold for Level 3 and black for Level 4 – alongside imagery representing different drinks categories

The new identity has been built for a digital-first world. It is scalable, adaptable and optimized for online environments, supporting the increasingly flexible and hybrid ways students engage with WSET globally.

A strategic growth enabler

The brand evolution is designed to support future growth, making WSET more accessible, recognizable and relevant to an international audience, regardless of geography, language or drinks category. It also reinforces WSET’s mission to provide inspiring learning experiences and deliver globally trusted qualifications.

WSET is currently rolling out its new brand identity across digital and physical touchpoints. Social channels have been refreshed, with an initial website update following shortly after. A full website relaunch is planned for later in the year.

For many craft producers, that surface-level appeal feels like the whole game: get the label right and the rest will follow. But according to Tim Weaver, U.K.-based branding strategist, founder of The Brand Weaver and host of the “Branding for Breweries” podcast, that mindset is the exact trap holding many alcohol companies back.

“The well-known quote that ‘your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room’ is accurate,” Weaver said. “It’s not just your logo or a label. Your brand is how you integrate into someone’s life, how you amplify it and how you reinforce their identity. When you get branding right, grabbing your product at a barbecue or a family dinner becomes second nature. It’s just the piece of the puzzle that fits.”

More than meets the label

In practice, branding means creating a sense of place for your product in a consumer’s life so it feels like the obvious choice in any given moment. While that does include tangible items like your label or packaging, it also extends into every branch of your business: your social media, your messaging, even the way you interact with customers. Your branding shapes how your target audience perceives your company in the first place and reinforces that perception at every turn. Branding is your most powerful differentiator in a competitive market and it’s a strong influencer of customer loyalty.

That’s a lot more than a label, so how do you actually do it? When Weaver works with a producer to define what encompasses the brand, he starts with what he calls a “point of truth.” That truth is the only thing that can hold a brand steady through growth, market shifts and customer churn. “If it’s not true, your company isn’t going to believe in it and neither will your customers. It comes across fake, like the cheesy car salesman approach,” he said. “But when you find that element of truth – what you really stand for – it becomes your North Star. It’s what every message, every visual, every marketing channel should stem from.”

The first pint is sold on awareness. The second is sold on taste. You can’t get to the second without the first.

Tim Weaver

Weaver’s framework for finding that point of truth is deliberately research-heavy. It starts with the company itself: what are the real strengths of the business, and what does the team believe sets them apart? This could be location, ingredients or sheer passion. From there, he looks outward to its customers, determining what keeps them coming back and why they reach for this brand instead of another. The final step is a close study of the competition, examining both the messages they put forward and the missteps best left unreplicated. When those three filters overlap, genuine brand positioning comes into focus.

The benefit is that once you’ve identified your brand purpose, or your North Star, consistency becomes easier. It doesn’t just inform your Instagram captions; it can show up in your taproom culture, your email newsletters, and even the way you speak to restaurant owners and distributors. “Your messaging, values, tone of voice, channels and any elements you use to promote your brand are fed from that one central point of truth,” said Weaver. “It influences everything you do from that point. It should be baked in.”

For example, for U.K.-based Wilful Beer, its “craft, not daft” positioning packs strategy behind clever wordplay. With a small team, old equipment and a commitment to making no-nonsense, great-tasting beer, its entire identity is rooted in the value of doing things by hand. That ethos carries through in how it shows up for customers: tradespeople get discounts as a nod to their own manual craft, coasters double as writable surfaces so drinkers can “leave their mark,” and its visual identity leans on imperfect, handmade fonts and textures rather than anything overly polished.

These deliberate choices all make sense because they are true to the way the brewery operates day to day. What you see in the branding is exactly what’s happening behind the scenes in the brewhouse.

When good brands go bad

Even with the best intentions, many producers stumble when it comes to branding. Weaver sees the same pitfalls repeated across the industry: mistakes that not only dull a brand’s impact, but can also prevent a great product from ever finding its audience. The first and most dangerous trap is assuming that liquid alone is enough.

“Be mindful of the Field of Dreams mentality. ‘Brew it and they will come’ is not a strategy. The best beer in the world doesn’t sell itself if nobody knows about it,” Weaver said. “The first pint is sold on awareness. The second is sold on taste. You can’t get to the second without the first.”

That belief often goes hand-in-hand with another mistake: looking inward instead of outward. Many producers, Weaver says, create for themselves and their friends, not for the broader market. That kind of thinking alienates the vast majority of drinkers who aren’t alcohol nerds chasing the next experimental release.

“Most people just want a great product that fits the moment. Brands need to stop talking to themselves and start talking to their consumers,” said Weaver. That doesn’t mean there isn’t space to play, though, simply that it must be approached strategically. “Understand what your consumer wants, win them over with that and gain the permission to introduce them to something unique that you’re really proud of,” said Weaver.

While Weaver is a proponent of “secret shopping” to see what a brand’s competitors are doing well (or not so well), he cautions that too many producers fall into the trap of looking only sideways within their own category. Studying another brewery’s taproom might show what’s trending, but it won’t necessarily reveal what’s truly distinctive. By contrast, looking outside the industry can spark ideas that feel fresh and unexpected.

“You can learn so much more from walking through a hotel lobby about how to improve your taproom than you can by going to your competitor’s taproom,” he said. The lighting, the flow of people, the way a space creates mood and comfort – these are lessons that apply to alcohol branding just as much as they do to hospitality.

Producers live their brand every day, so they can get tired of it quickly. But your customers might only interact with you once every couple of weeks. To them, you’re not repetitive – you’re finally becoming clear.

Tim Weaver

Finally, Weaver bristles at overused buzzwords like “quality,” “community,” and “authenticity,” that have been drained of meaning. “If you have to say you’re authentic, you probably aren’t,” he said. “Every producer will claim quality. Every brewery will claim community. Those words mean nothing if you can’t show what they actually look like in practice.”

Keep your story straight

Entrepreneurs are an ambitious bunch, always finding inspiration to execute new ideas. While there’s nothing wrong with dreaming big, when it comes to branding, it’s essential to filter every idea through your North Star. Flash can grab attention for a moment, but it’s consistency that keeps customers coming back. “You actually do your customers a disservice by veering off track,” said Weaver. “It can be confusing for them when you do something off kilter to what you typically communicate.”

In that sense, it might behoove you to feel like you’re drilling the message a little too hard. “Producers live their brand every day, so they can get tired of it quickly. But your customers might only interact with you once every couple of weeks. To them, you’re not repetitive – you’re finally becoming clear.” That means weaving your messaging through every channel over and over again, on the assumption that it’s likely only a fraction of your audience saw your social media post, newsletter or poster. “Continue to repeat and reinforce your core message,” said Weaver.

That said, consistency doesn’t mean staying static. It means finding ways to carry your story across every touchpoint, from coasters and bar mats to emails and events. Through any medium, whether it’s print advertising, social media, networking, podcast interviews or anything else, approach all aspects with your brand purpose in mind. Each medium requires its own tactics, but all should feel unmistakably like the same brand.

Shelf esteem

So, you’ve got a strong brand position, you’re crystal clear on your message and what you stand for, and you know what you want your customers to associate with your company. Now, how do you get that onto the shelves? In liquor store aisles, where a split-second decision can make or break a sale, Weaver says disruption is the goal. It’s a matter of bringing your point of truth to life. This is where illustrators and designers earn their keep, finding ways for visuals to carry your brand story. Sometimes disruption is subtle: a different can size, a contrasting top colour or an unusual label texture.

“It’s not always about the design itself,” Weaver said. “Sometimes, it’s the shape or the feel that stops someone’s eye as they’re scanning.” Weaver says that producers often pour budget into striking front-of-bottle artwork, but ignore the rest of the package. “The back of the package is prime real estate to tell your story. Too often it’s wasted on a giant barcode or clunky layout. Design is about storytelling across the whole package, not just the cover art,” said Weaver.

Beyond the shelf, he says that small producers often overlook low-cost opportunities to stand out at the point of sale. Coasters, balloons or even a display box that doubles as a shelf unit can multiply visibility without multiplying spend. Sometimes, it’s as simple as noticing a need in the space itself – like a bar with uncomfortable stools – and offering a solution, whether that’s branded cushions or another thoughtful detail that puts your product at the centre of the experience.

“If you can be the one brewery remembered out of 20 samples at a festival or 100 options on a shelf, you’ve won,” Weaver said. However, the real differentiator isn’t novelty for novelty’s sake – it’s integration. Producers who understand who their drinkers are and how their product fits into customers’ lives will always have the edge. Packaging might earn a second glance, but it can only take a brand so far. The ones that have longevity are the producers who carry their truth through every touchpoint, until it stops feeling like marketing and starts feeling like identity.

“Great branding informs how a product fits into your customer’s ritual, their moment, their identity,” Weaver said. “That’s when branding moves beyond packaging. That’s when it becomes part of people’s lives.”

“We specialize in serving the craft beer industry with products such as custom tap handles, beer tasting sampler paddles, jockey box covers, serving boards and wooden signage,” said Berson. Starting out small with a focus on quality and design, Berson said, “We work directly with our clients to design and build everything from beer handles to restaurant signage, [and] everything in between.”

He says working with his clients to create and design ergonomic, well-crafted pieces is what he likes most about the industry. “Having worked in hospitality, I know that having taps or flights that work for individual restaurants is a key component to success,” he said.

The importance of branding

For those in the hospitality industry who want custom tap handles to showcase a brewery or cidery’s personality, Berson says branding is essential, which can be challenging. The process of creating custom tap handles begins with a conversation between Berson and his client by phone, email or in person.

“A great logo may look fantastic on the outside of a building, but not translate well to a tap handle. We try to find the best way to showcase logos and brands on handles that pop and focus on what is being poured, rather than just a flashy design.”

Adam Berson, Smooth Edge Design

“Often, there is a lot of back and forth with logos and proofs, but [the process] can also be quite simple – even from a napkin sketch to proof to fabrication.” He says it can sometimes be challenging to translate a company’s brand to tap handles and flight boards. “A great logo may look fantastic on the outside of a building, but not translate well to a tap handle. We try to find the best way to showcase logos and brands on handles that pop and focus on what is being poured, rather than just a flashy design.”

When it comes to custom tasting paddles and sampler flights to showcase a brewery or cidery’s personality, this is no easy task.

“If you had all the money in the world, it is still tough to do that for everyone,” Berson said. “For example, table size and how beer is ordered or served makes a huge difference for flights. Do you need a chit or paper that says what each beer you’ve ordered is, or can you read the numbers on the sign at the brewery above the bar?”

It is also imperative to know how much of an effort a business wants to make for their customers to know what beers they are drinking without sacrificing design or function. “Is your beer glass even made to fit that flight? Or is beer glass stability a factor? And how many glasses are falling over and breaking? Don’t spill that beer! Sometimes simpler is better,” said Berson. He says function matters greatly in a tasting room, as servers and customers want a strong connection between branding and usage.

Function is also important when it comes to beer festivals, which is why custom wooden jockey box covers are popular among Smooth Edge Design’s customers, especially if a company is at a big beer festival and has brought along staff, tents, banners, beer and the plastic jockey box cooler.

When it comes to which project he is most proud of, Berson says it is the number of satisfied customers he has. “It is pretty amazing for a small company like ours to have such a large customer base. Our plan for the next few years is to keep working with our existing clients and meeting the new ones that want to come along for the ride.”