You Can’t Judge a Beer by Its Cover

The alternative title could be Beauty and the Beer. 

In either case, I am not awfully qualified to talk about beer. I drink it rarely, at the infrequent cookout or gathering, primarily when that’s what everyone else is having. I let someone else choose the brand because they all taste about the same to me. I would always prefer a moderately priced wine.

That being the case, on some of those occasions I’m puzzled to hear someone defending his choice of beer as the best tasting. Television ads have also for years touted the taste of their beers, especially stressing how they can remove the calories without negatively affecting the great taste, presumably allowing imbibers to get drunk without getting fat.

That’s why I was so surprise to see, first on the TV news and later on the CBS website, the headline: “ ‘They want more than just a great beer’: How craft breweries are embracing cover art.” That’s right, craft breweries – considered by some to be the best of the best, small batches, meticulously brewed, old-world recipes, etc. – are trying to differentiate themselves with artistic labels. Or as CBS puts it, “Craft beermakers go to extraordinary lengths to brew up the perfect pint – and lately, that attention to detail has shifted to what's on the outside as well.”

They go on to explain how one particular brand was rated Best Beer Label in a recent USA Today poll. “For years, the can has been one of the most sought after in the world.” 

Their competitors are following their lead, teaming up with artists and designers to create new and captivating labels. Some examples of their efforts are listed here in a piece called, “The 20 Best Beer Label Designs of 2018.” Although these are fun to look at, the first question that comes to mind is, who is judging which is the best? As subjective as the rest of the art world is these days, it’s likely one person’s opinion vs. another. Are they going to develop “schools” of beer can art?

While the beer brands are trying to win business with artsier labels, this is one of the companies trying to win business as a label designer by convincing them of the importance of such a decision. “With the sheer variety of beer labels on store shelves, making a buying decision can be challenging. As a result, many shoppers gravitate toward the brightest, boldest, most unusual designs.” 

Although judging a beer by it’s label may seem like a silly premise, Nielsen studies have shown that the design of the container or box can carry almost as much weight with the beer buying public as the style and brand name.

The whole situation reinforces the observation of how superficial Americans can be. No matter how adamant some are about their favorite brand, marketing departments of large and small brewers are willing to shell out more money for designers to come up with innovative labels to sway the public, increase market share and even turn their customers into beer can collectors. It’s the perfect marriage of two purely subjective judgements, taste and beauty. Will the beer drinkers of today be trading beer cans like their grandparents used to trade baseball cards? Will they march like lemmings to buy the prettiest beer can as determined by the annual beer can judging contest, just as teenagers are influenced by the number of likes on social media content?

Perhaps this means that I have been right all along and that one beer tastes about the same as another, forcing them to turn to a new gimmick to try to stand out.